After enjoying episode 15 of the Press Start podcast on the train this morning, I thought I'd write a bit about what games I've been playing lately, even if only one of them has been on the DS.
I played through Super Paper Mario on the Wii. I loved The Thousand Year Door, especially the music, and Super Paper Mario did not disappoint. I managed to get through the whole game, and have played through some of the fun side amusements you can dive into once the main quest is done:
- Merlee's quest
- the treasure maps
- card collecting
- Pit of 100 Trials
- the arcade games
An annoyance compared to even Thousand Year Door is that, to fit on the wiimote, the controls are simplified to the point of having to switch pixls to get different controls. For example, if you were laying bombs but needed to switch to the hammer, you have to switch from Boomer to Cudge; it's especially apparent for the pixls (or even other characters) who replicate powers you simply earned in Thousand Year Door. The game was originally for Gamecube, though, so I don't see how that could actually be, unless they intended to limit the control scheme to only a few buttons on the GC as well.
Before Super Paper Mario, my Wii was still full of Mario while I played Mario Sunshine (finished, starting from an abandoned save) and Mario 64 (not quite complete). I joked I was in training for Galaxy, but as Galaxy's release date is still unannounced, I have plenty of time to get out of shape again—though after beating Paper Mario, I picked back up New Super Mario Bros of all things. With the advantage of distance, I can disagree with my comparison of New SMB with the original Yoshi's Island, having gotten stuck and disinterested in Yoshi's Island DS due to its difficulty and the complexity of managing multiple protagonists. In comparison New SMB was frightfully easy to pick back up, and mixes the classic formulas of Super Mario Bros 1 and 3 with beautiful art into a new great game.
Meanwhile, I found myself unable to resist the 99¢ month's trial of Gametap, Turner Broadcasting's digital game delivery service for Windows PCs (also mentioned in the podcast). For your month's subscription, you get free access to almost 900 games. Of those there are some real gems, though as a friend said, a bunch of them are the same PC games you see in every bargain bin.
With the help of an Xbox 360 controller, I played a few arcade style classics like Galaxian and two of my Atari 2600 favorites, Yar's Revenge and Beamrider. I grew up in a Nintendo household, but I played a little Sonic 3, and will probably get back to it. The buffet subscription model shines with these old games; it's like having your own arcade on freeplay.
Gametap is big into the Myst series, as they're the only place to get the multiplayer online version of the last game, Uru. With fond memories of the Quicktime/Hypercard version on the PC, I gave into the siren song plastered all over the site and played through realMYST, the free-moving 3D reproduction of the first game. It was a fun experience, although the Quicktime video integrated into some scenes made the game stutter unplayably at points on my iMac (I was running Windows on it with Boot Camp). I hope, if I give in further to the series, that Riven runs better.
The main argument for Gametap to me was, of course, the new Sam & Max episodes, which are full of witty dialogue and gamer in-jokes, and thus completely delightful. (Now that Gametap got their exclusive time, you can also get them directly from Telltale without a Gametap subscription.) They are definitely old school adventure games, with the same sometimes frustrating puzzles. I had to look at walkthroughs a few times. Luckily Jeff "CJayC" Veasey's walkthroughs on Gamefaqs have "Hint Guide" sections written in the same leading, sometimes outright Socratic style of the old Infocom adventures' in-game hints, so you can stop reading as soon as he tells you precisely which of your many blind assumptions is preventing you from understanding the puzzle.
I hope these suggestions might give you some ideas for your own play time... for the week until Ouendan 2 hits shelves, at least.