I promised myself I wouldn't do it agian.

After playing Final Fantasy X and loving every minute of it (Except Blitzball but that goes without saying) I eargerly anticipated the arrival of Final Fantasy X-2, hoping that it would continue the sombre storyline of the original. I was interested in learning more about the characters and seeing where life had taken them since the end of the previous storyline - I bought it on the day of release, powered up my PS3 and sat silently for the next four minutes feeling the expression on my face slowly change from excitement to disgust.

You might think I'm being dramatic, or possibly just exaggerating, but watch the intro for yourself and tell me how you feel about it.

Being the fan boy that I am, I still gave it a good shot, but the whole game was completely filled with this flowery, girl power fuelled flirtiness that you just couldn't avoid. When did Final Fantasy become a sci-fi franchise anyways? Where's the Wizards, why aren't there any Moogles anywhere? I don't know if they were trying to make it appeal more to girls or if they were just horribly drunk.

I chalked it up to Square having an off year, but when Final Fantasy XII was announced, I approached it cautiously.

It wasn't a bad game really, it was just too much like an MMO. Forcing players to grind experience from easy mobs in leiu of content might work in MMOs but it's not suitable for a single player game, and so my opinion of the franchise started to change.

When Final Fantasy XIII was announced, I was nonplussed. When they spent more than they ever had before on marketing it I was even more skeptical, but part of me thought - Hey, maybe they know they made the past few games bad, so they're trying to show people that they're really confident about this one - my mistake I guess.

The rule of marketing held true, and it seems that for every dollar spent on marketing, the game was dumbed down an additional 1% for the mainstream, and yes that is accurate math.

Needless to say I didn't enjoy FFXIII either. Not many people did.

Yet somehow it still has a direct sequel.

Logic would tell me that if I didn't like the direct sequel to a game I loved, I probably wouldn't like a direct sequel to a game that I hated, but I'm a fan boy, logic has no place in this discussion.

So now I find myself with nothing to do on a Saturday, Final Fantasy XIII-2 having been released just this week and even though I know that I'm probably going to hate it - I'm just going to go buy it.

But I'm serious this time - no more excuses - if this one is bad I'm going to write off the whole franchise for all of eternity.

Probably.

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I'm not sure what it is about this weekend, I suppose playing EverQuest yesterday has brought a lot of old gaming memories to the surface. In this case one game in particular.

After a quick youtube check to make sure I wasn't just imaginging it, I downloaded an emulator, tracked down the ROM and prepared myself for the "...full throttle thrill of Cobra Triangle!"

I had played the game quite a bit when I was young, I'm pretty sure I finished it but honestly can't remember. The stages will load in a different sequence each time you play so it's hard to tell sometimes.

Cobra Triangle is one of the more unique games for the NES. Granted, it's more or less just a one player RC Pro-Am on water but that's not really a bad thing. It's an isometric boat racing/shooting game with some bonus levels and boss fights thrown in, as well as the odd stationary level that feels almost like a game of Asteroids at times.

If you've got nothing to do today, give it a try. It's not too hard to find the Rom and there are plenty of good emulators out there. It's one of those rare games (no pun intended) that makes you want to keep hitting continue just to prove you can beat it. Those evil monochrome enemy boats are just so smug in their silence. I also find it curious how the situation you're in is completely ridiculous, and devoid of any logical plot, but somehow you're still happy to just go with it.

It's also a good opportunity to see where the studio that brought you games like Donkey Kong Country, Battle Toads and of course - Goldeneye on N64 - had it's beginnings.

Rare is one of the oldest game developers whose doors are still open and while unfortunately the founders have long gone, and Rare has become what sometimes feels like a studio that just develops tech demos for the Xbox 360 (Kinect Sports: Season Two!) I guess that's just a sign of the times.

So I'll take my Sunday morning to play one for Rare, the once great development studio that brought me one of my favorite games of all time - Killer Instinct - and hope that the Stamper Brothers who in my ten minutes of Internet research seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth are out there enjoying themselves, and just incase they Google themselves and somehow find their way here - I thought Perfect Dark was great, and I'll always have fond memories of Marble Madness but I'll probably never forgive you for Killer Instinct Gold :)

Thanks guys!

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It's a quiet Saturday night, and as I'm currently on call for work and it's starting to dip into the negatives these days, I'm even less inclined than normal to venture out in search of alcohol.

So while I'm normally quite content to pass the time with the usual distractions of League of Legends, Left 4 Dead or whatever dreadful thing the Canadian version of Netflix has managed to consider a "New arrival" I found myself craving something new, but ended up rediscovering something old.

Behold, Osoi, my Iksar Necromancer.

I've had project 1999 up and running for a while now, but never really gave it much thought until the other day when an old EQ friend posted about it on my forums.

I figured, why not.

So I updated it, booted it up, started an Iksar Necromancer, and very quickly realized just how pampered I've been with WoW.

Although most of my memory of EverQuest has faded, the names of NPCs and the different areas in the Iksar starting city seemed vaguely familiar. Didn't I kill that guy once? Isn't this where the Monk Epic quest chain leads?

I found myself wandering through a passageway that was hidden under a waterfall and through an invisible wall, somehow navigating through the maze as if I knew exactly where I was going, even though I honestly couldn't even begin to tell you where I was.

After another twenty minutes or so of wandering around trying to find the newbie zone I did what I have come to feel of as the unthinkable in an MMO.

I asked another player for help.

As a slightly higher level fellow Iksar happened by, I hailed him, he stopped to return my hail and then stood waiting while I expressed my embarassement, but asked if he could tell me what the name of the starting zone was.

I expected at best, a monotone "Field of Bone" before he ran off, and at worst a WoW-esque /sigh in my direction, before he continued on his way exclaiming to his guild about the stupid newb that interrupted him while he was extremely busy being awesome - But what actually happened immediately reminded me why I enjoyed this game so much in the first place. He asked me to follow, showed me the zone line, and even took the time to show me a quest giver that would be useful in turning in items I was likely to loot from the mobs there before wishing me well and going on his way.

Thanks to the assistance of my new friend, I made my way out into the Field of Bone and started cautiously killing anything that looked pathetic enough to not give me too much trouble, quickly remembering how annoying it was when spells would fizzle, and use up just enough mana that you wouldn't have enough to re-cast, or when a guard would steal your kill because you were too afraid to fight any further from the road.

While there is a part of me that would like it to be easier, so that I could speed up the process, when I hit level two an hour later I realized that I actually felt as though I had accomplished something, something that I've rarely felt in any more recent MMO.

As I write this I'm still only level two, and realistically I doubt I have the time to make a serious attempt at leveling a character in EverQuest but there was one point, even in these two early levels that made me feel like I needed to share, as I felt like it demonstrated what made EQ so memorable to so many people.

Forgiving all the horrbile design decisions, questionable UI, and all the other things about EverQuest that could truly be done so much better, as I was killing a skeleton I looked into the distance, but couldn't see past the top of a small hill.

While I looked out at the horizon my mind immediately started to wander and imagine what could be out there. Now, I know what is out there because in another life I have been there many times, but that feeling of wonder, of not knowing exactly what's out there and not simply being able to pull up a map, or run there and look is really what made Norrath so intriguing.

It was inaccessible not because I hadn't purchased the proper skills to explore it, not because there was a UI element telling me I wasn't allowed to go there, or I wasn't high enough level, but because if I tried to go literally anywhere in the world at level 2 I would be killed and likely would not be able to get my items back without help from other players.

Even with only the first expansion, Norrath is a massive place, and to this day contains items that have never been found, and quests that have never been completed.

It's that feeling of being able to explore the unknown and figure out the world for yourself instead of just having NPCs show you exactly where to go that drives you to level and want to become more powerful. This isn't just a script you're following, it's not just content you're consuming, it's a virtual world that exists whether you're there or not. EverQuest never goes out of it's way to pat you on the back and make you feel like a hero, that part is up to you. While it's often frustraing, and challenging, it is in overcoming the challenges that you really feel a sense of accomplishment. You never need the game to tell you that you've achieved something, because you will feel it for yourself.

Maybe I'm reading into it a little much, I do tend to get pretty nostalgic when I talk about EverQuest, all I know is that I just played a 12 year old game for an hour and not only enjoyed it but really felt like it was a step up from what I've been playing over the past few months, which only affirms my belief that we're headed in the wrong direction.

Whether or not I end up continuing with it, if you want to give classic EverQuest (and Kunark) a try, pick up a copy of EverQuest: Titanium edition, follow the instructions here and come join me.

Oh, and just for a little added nostalgia for those of you that were around in the beginning:

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Finally the incessant whining of thousands of jaded gamers has been heard. We're the ones that cringe when we cross a check point, moan endlessly about button mashing, and are simply bored by beating high-definition bosses with the pattern based intelligence of Bowser.

No longer will we be forced to fight through linear content, with carefully crafted bosses that are designed to be killed, instead of to kill, or to fight perfectly placed groups of goblins, always in manageable mobs. It's once again time to enjoy a game not because it's a cinematic "experience" but because it forces us to ask ourselves that age old question - "How the fuck is anyone supposed to beat this?" - and answer silently through skilled play and determination, not by switching an option to "easy".

For far too long now difficulty and depth in mainstream games has been decreasing... what? I died? This is bullshit. I paid $70 for this game, I should be it's master and it should make me feel like a hero. Now I just feel discouraged, even angry that a mere game - something that's supposed to be fun - is causing me to feel... challenged. Quickly, to the Internet! This injustice must be documented... Unfortunately, the crybaby crowd pays the bills, so to speak.

But now it's our chance to show developers that we want games that are challenging by design, not by artificial switch. We want games that frustrate us sometimes or have to be figured out. We want games that allow us to actually feel the confusion and frustration of being thrown into a world without always knowing exactly what to do or where to go, instead of just watching it play out in front of us.

Whether or not I end up having the time and patience to finish it, I am glad that it's here. It's time for me to dust off my Xbox controller before smashing it to pieces in frustration, and hopefully for a younger generation of gamers, time for them not only to experience exactly what we mean when we say that games used to be hard, but also to find out for themselves how rewarding it can be to complete them.

...

I am of course referring to today's launch of Dark Souls. The follow up to 2009's Demon's Souls. Let's see if we can get this one a little further up the sales charts, so that From Software isn't the only developer that gets the message.

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Every once in a while I reconnect with an old friend from EverQuest or another online game, occasionally someone from high school or even earlier and as a testament to just how much of a video game nerd I've been over the years the same question always comes up; "What are you playing these days?".

It's quite likely that I'm steering the conversation in the direction of games, I just can't help myself sometimes, but the fact remains that I never have a good answer. There is the ever present World of Warcraft which I would compare to a caffeine addiction - it's annoying and would be nice to be done with but it's just so wonderful having a coffee sometimes and it's not like the heroine that was EverQuest, it's quite possible to lead a normal life and still enjoy it. In fact to further this horrible analogy, much like coffee if you play World of Warcraft too much you just end up feeling awful and not enjoying it at all. I guess that would apply to heroin too, but whatever I think I've made my point, or something.

Outside of that I've found games to be uninteresting lately. I'm not really suggesting that I've outgrown them, I think it's actually the other way around. Games have become this mass media entertainment "thing" that I just don't understand anymore. Something that was explained quite nicely by this video...

The only real exceptions to this rule are the few and far between interesting unique games like Portal or Left 4 Dead. Games that don't really go out of their way to convince you that they're exciting and dramatic, and let the gameplay speak for itself, but other than the odd round of Left 4 Dead 2, I'm not really playing those either.

I would honestly love to have another interesting new game pop up unexpectedly that isn't the same been there done that garbage that has been coming out lately. People are trying to get me to play Civilization V, and Game Dev Story for the iPhone but I just know it's going to be the same old progress bar here, tech tree there, build order blah blah blah. I'm not even saying I wouldn't enjoy it, I'm just saying it would be nice to be surprised by a game instead of simply satiated.

Maybe I'm just too old and jaded. Maybe I'm a video game hipster of sorts that can't enjoy any big budget games because they're just all so formulaic. Just like a real hipster it's like I know I would enjoy most of these things if I took the time to actually try them but instead of seeing a flock of birds fly into the air as I walk by I see birdAnimation001_Start() when playerCharacter(exists) within radius$v and get annoyed.

So to make this really long unintelligible answer a little more to the point... I'm not really actively playing anything. I have played many games in the past few months, but have any games really made me want to go back and play through them again? to tell people they should go buy it? made me genuinely laugh or be surprised and not just sigh and be amused at how ridiculous they are?

Unfortunately the answer is no, not really. Anything that has, has worked it's way onto my blog here. Dragon Age, Lords of Ultima briefly... there's not much. There are a lot of promising titles on the horizon but the longer they stay in development the more skeptical I become that they're not just going to be trimmed down for mainstream appeal into another Call of Duty or World of Warcraft clone. It's as if the more money they spend on a game, the more they need to make so the more mass market appeal they have to give it which in my opinion just ends up making it boring. Wonderfully profitable to be sure, but boring none the less.

And yes I realize that complaining about this while still playing World of Warcraft occasionally is horribly hypocritical of me and I have no real come back for that except to say that my Paladin is awesome and hope that somehow that derails the conversation long enough for you to forget what you were accusing me of.

So I'm back at the start here, wondering how to answer that dreaded question and I guess my real answer is that the question is flawed. We, as gamers, shouldn't just be asking each other what we're playing, we should be asking each other what we're enjoying? I think we would be surprised to find that they're often not the same thing.

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