'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe

Metroid: Third Derivative #430

TOWER of POWER!



I've not forgotten about the Ocarina of Time posts (or, indeed, about Skyward Sword)... but I have been a little sidetracked recently by the latest awesomely bonkers Legend of Zelda instalment: Triforce Heroes.

So far elemnar and I, along with the help of random unknown Links, have conquered the first two dungeon sets. All in all we've managed to be surprisingly co-ordinated despite playing online without voice chat - it turns out that the sort-of chat symbols provided in-game are exactly the right ones needed to tell people what to do. And when all else fails you can just pick up the other player, toss them in the right direction, and hope they get the hint :)

Oh, now that was a surprise.

( Hyrule Warriors spoilers )

I claim this is half detailed analysis of whatever games I'm playing and only half semi-intelligible ramblings about popular culture, and in any case only 2 of you lot actually answered the poll :)

talismancer made an interesting post about old games today, and it got me thinking. Like him I own relatively few recent games and tend to play older ones, though not as old as DOS. To give an example some games I've been playing recently and/or frequently are:

Wipeout 64 (N64)
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (GBA)
Super Smash Bros Melee (Gamecube)
Metroid Prime (Gamecube)
Okami (Wii)
Twilight Princess (Wii)
Skyward Sword (Wii)

The oldest one in that set is probably Yoshi's Island as that was originally released on the SNES. The newest would be Skyward Sword - I have newer games, but none that I've played recently. Wipeout 64 is something of an anomaly: it's the only game in the Wipeout series that wasn't released on a Playstation of some sort. It's also possibly had the most hours put into it of any game I own, as I just find it such a fun racing game to play. What other racing game lets you throw the racetrack at your opponents?

Super Smash Bros Melee on the other hand easily has the most multiplayer hours, thanks to many, many years of elemnar and I honing our skills at it and generally teaching level 9 AIs to fear the Pikachu with a baseball bat and the Sheik with a star rod. From time to time ThatGNU would join in, and (with the aid of a glass of whiskey!) manage one devastating round against the pair of us before getting hammered in the next few.

The other odd thing about that list is there are no PC games on it. The last bunch of PC gaming I did was a while ago, when I leisurely trundled through Riven, Myst III and Myst IV (I would have started with Myst except the CD for that evaporated decades ago). They're an interesting set of games: Riven has the whole backstory with Gehn, Myst III makes for a comparatively relaxing interlude, while Myst IV has a much deeper plot with a couple of surprising twists. And while none of them are fast-paced action games, they do require a bit of thought and keeping a journal. Apart from text adventures, the only other game where I've been actively keeping notes is Skyward Sword.

I do keep meaning to have a crack at some more PC games again, as there's several that for one reason or another I've never got round to completing. I did enjoy the 5-way Command & Conquer ones in the flat in Brighton - we usually played them as us versus computers, with a general endgame of the AIs getting overwhelmed by Will's unstoppable zeppelin fleet (occasionally the AIs would wise up and gang up on Will, at which point they got flattened by the rest of us). Hmm... I really ought to get in touch with the (ex-)Brighton crew and set up a round of LAN games or something...

Did you know that if you hit the giant gems in the walls of Thrill Digger, rupees come out?

Nope, neither did I until earlier today when I happened to sit on the chair by the Thrill Digger guy. See, Skyward Sword is full of stools and chairs in various places, and while they might appear to be just eye candy they actually come in quite handy. The first trick is that if you sit and wait a moment, you will regain all your health. That's incredibly useful in Hero Mode, where hearts are unobtainium.

The second trick is if you sit down next to someone, they'll talk to you. Sometimes it's just saying hello, sometimes it's total randomness (like the Thrill Digger guy explaining just why he's balancing on his tail), and every so often it's a useful little snippet like that rupee one, or a hint as to where something is hidden.

And then some are just placed to let you admire the view, like the bench right at the top of Skyloft behind all the houses. Sit there, and the camera pulls back to show you the whole of Skyloft.

I like games which have interesting things to discover, little rewards for pausing and looking around instead of hurrying through. Metroid Prime (especially the first of the trilogy) was excellent at this sort of thing - there was an incredible amount of things you could scan there beyond the creature details and log books. The extra scans were pretty much anything from the useful (one log tells you about the Metroid vulnerability to cold) to the amusing ("Metroids are not pets. Metroids are not for target practice") to the we're-all-doomed (there's one with the Space Pirates fairly panicking once they realise you're merrily waltzing through their base) to the mundane (a log hidden away in a secret cave at the top of Phendrana's Edge merely reminds personnel to check their life support equipment). And that's just the Space Pirate ones - there's just as many about the Chozo and their ruins, and even odd tidbits about the environment around you (scanning the little red flowers reveals that they're prized as a delicacy). None of it is at all necessary for a game to be good, and yet it adds just that little bit extra that makes it much more enjoyable.