Game Boy Color #1: Pokemon Gold Version

If you're in your mid 20s than you can probably guess how hard it is for me to write about Pokemon. When I became a teenager was almost the same time the Pokemon cartoon started playing in America, and Pokemania was born. To so many people, Pokemon was a kid's franchise with annoying characters that gave people seizures. I think it's still hard for people my age to look past this today. Of course, people who have been able to get over the kid factor probably already know that Pokemon is the perfect franchise for handheld gaming.

Pokemon is the type of game that lasts seemingly forever, but can be played in short bursts. This makes it ideal for both traveling and staying at home. In the early days of Game Boy, they figured the way to deal with gamers on the go was to make very short games. This way they could be completed during a short car ride. Of course, the smaller cart size didn't help either. This made for a very shallow gaming experience. Pokemon, however, figured out a way to make a very long quest while still making the game a perfect portable. One of the most important features is the ability to save anywhere. This allows you to quickly end your game if you have to stop abruptly. Also, the gameplay is fairly simple, so if you do have to stop it is easy to pick up again. The games can take 100s of hours if you chose, so it can be played on very long trips, or when you're just sitting around your house. I seriously can't think of a game that fits the Game Boy better.

Pokemon Gold is one of the three games that make up generation 2. There are always multiple versions of each Pokemon game with slight variations, so even though there are three Pokemon games before it Pokemon Gold is the second actual game in the series. If you've played Pokemon before than you already know how it works. You travel from town to town, you battle and catch Pokemon, you raise them up by fighting some more, you fight gym leaders and collect badges, you encounter your rival and other villains, and you collect a bunch of items that will quickly fill up your inventory screen. It is truly glorious.

It is also important to note that this game has a second quest. I didn't know this initially, so I actually thought I had beaten the game before it actually happened. This was actually a little infuriating to me because I had spent so much time with this game and was ready to move on. Luckily, it doesn't take too long. However, it is a bit anticlimactic. At least I finally got to go to Mt. Silver.

Oh yeah, and my one gripe about this game is how it's always making you get off your bicycle. Was this for realism? They do realize this is a game where a giant egg can fight a tree. Would having someone ride their bike indoors make the games too implausible? Why didn't it put you automatically back on your bike after you leave these places? It seems like if you're automatically taken off you can just as easily be put back on. Having to select the bike from the menu screen so many times really slows things down.

All griping aside though I love those Pokemon games. I don't think they're usually thought of as RPGs, but I think they're some of the best RPGs out there. At least the first two are. I'm still far behind and have never played any of the newer ones. Hopefully I can correct this the next time I have 100 extra hours or start taking a passenger plane to work.

Atari 2600 #1: Pitfall 2

For whatever reason I'm having a good amount of trouble writing about Pitfall 2. I don't know if it's because the game itself is so unusual, or that I don't know how to write about Atari games. It's not like most other Atari games though. Most console games back then were simply point grabbers. Your purpose would be to collect as many points as possible before you died. Pitfall 2 radically changed the formula. In this game you couldn't die, and you had a definite goal. The game still has you running around collecting points, but this time around things were much more complicated.

Pitfall 2 is one of the few Atari games I'm going to be able to write about in the standard format, so hopefully you enjoy this one. You won't get getting many like it. This game is the sequel to the wildly popular Pitfall, which is often the game given credit for creating the platform genre. I have no idea how true that is, but knowing games it probably isn't at all. Can anyone think of an older game which has you walking back and forth on a plane, collecting things, and jumping over pits? I guess Donkey Kong is older if that counts.

Actually now that I think about it, that's about all you do in Pitfall. The whole point of that one is to use the upper and lower parts of the screen to find the shortest routes between treasures. You have twenty minutes to find as much as you can without falling in any holes or getting eaten by crocodiles. Pitfall 2 has much more freedom. The clock is gone this time around, and also it lets you move every which way. You can jump in the water and swim, or find a balloon and float. The fact that it goes vertical as well as horizontal must've been amazing back in 1984. It also has specific goals. Pitfall Harry has to find a lost diamond, his niece, and his pet lion. After he does this he does a little jig and the game ends. It's a surprisingly satisfying experience for such and old game.

Probably the most unique thing about this game is that Pitfall Harry cannot die. There are certain checkpoints throughout the game, and when he gets hit by something he is simply spirited away to the last checkpoint. Instead of dying you lose points and have to do that section over again. It can get frustrating, especially in the final section with all the low flying birds and bats. It would make me want to pull my hair out if I had any.

The fact that collecting points is such a priority in this game puts it in a really interesting spot in gaming history. 1984 would be the year that Atari would essentially implode. It was also right around this time that we lost Colecovision, Intellivision, Odyssey 2, and basically all the consoles of that generation. The video game marked seemed almost dead until late 1985 when the NES came along and saved the world. It featured a brand new type of game which emphasized exploration and goal completion over point collecting. Pitfall 2 exists as both an old fashioned point collector and a newer platform style game. It was one of the few times after 1981 that Atari put out a game that was truly innovative and fun. After that point they were usually one or the other, or even more often neither.

So as you can tell, I'm a big fan of Pitfall 2. I think it is much better than the first one, and overall one of the best games on the system. Even though there are no lives it's still a challenge. This game has both the satisfaction of finishing something and the excitement and replay value of a classic arcade game. When I was playing this game, I told my girlfriend that I was really going to gush about this game. Honestly I said even more nice things about it than I expected. It really is a classic.

NES #35: Adventures of Lolo

Adventures of Lolo was the last game I beat before I started this blog. I could've written about it back then, but since I'm a stickler for my own arbitrary and meaningless rules I decided to save it. I'm glad I did it, because I've been on a massive dry spell lately. I keep wandering from game to game without being able to focus on one long enough to finish. I get in moods like this, so it's nice to still have some NES games to fall back on. Hopefully this will help me build up momentum as my blog moves forward.

Lolo is a very good game, and it's one of the genres that I miss most from the 8-bit era. There used to be many of these one screen action/puzzle games. I used to love these for several reasons. First of all, they made me use my brain. Even as a little kid I was sort of a stuck up nerd. Secondly, I loved how many levels they had. This was back during a time when levels were everything, and in my opinion the more there were the better the game would be. I also loved how short the passwords in these games were. The whole concept of passwords made no since to me as a kid. I thought that people picked out any ol' random word they wanted for. I couldn't understand why some of them were so long. Now I understand that they were actually pieces of code, and it makes perfect since why a one screen puzzle game would have a shorter password than an epic rpg. Still, 4 letter passwords are certainly a plus.

Lolo has a fairly simple concept. You collect hearts and then open up a treasure chest before something kills you. You will also occasionally be able to turn some monsters into eggs. It's sort of like Bubble Bobble without all the jumping. Some of the puzzles are quite fiendish while others just require walking very fast or not being an idiot. I'm proud of myself for being able to get through this whole game without looking up any of the puzzles. At least that's what I did the first time through. The second time I was in a big hurry so I looked a couple of things up. I don't figure it's really cheating if I've done it all before.

This is a very good game, but there are a couple of things that really annoy me. The main complaint I have about this game is how exact it requires you to be. Now I understand that action/puzzle games are very much about the planning and need to be exact, but the problems in Lolo appear to be more control issues than design flaws. Imagine that you have just spend several minutes plotting out a level and have executed everything personally. Now it is time to go move the final block. But wait a second, the block was moved an inch closer to the wall, and now it is impossible to move. You can imagine my frustration as this happens over and over. This isn't from the design either. It's from the controls allowing Lolo to push things to quickly. I know that the game would be incredibly slow without the fast block moving action, but there has to be a happy medium somewhere. If you push your block even a hair in the wrong direction it will become impossible to move and that only leads to suicide. Poor Lolo had to commit suicide dozens of times while I was playing, and it's a game that was still fairly fresh on my mind. Would it have killed the gameplay if Lolo was able to pull as well as push? I suppose it would change that way the levels were designed, but I'm sure there would be a lot less broken controllers in the world from angry gamers.

So anyway I did have fun with Lolo. It's not so long and difficult that it becomes impossible. The levels aren't numbered so I don't know exactly how many there are, but I think it's around 60. As I said before, I miss these old one screen action/puzzle games. I can only think of a handful coming out after the NES went under. It's to the point now that if one did come out, it would only be a novelty and not proof that the genre still existed. And while this game isn't the strongest in the genre, it's still a lot of fun. It's also not as expensive as Bubble Bobble or Kickle Cubicle which knocks it up a couple of points on my list.