Today has already proven to be quite eventful. Whilst I have recently been disheartened at the fact that it’s still impossible to find Guitar Hero II on shelves anywhere in the gaming (GAME, ePlay) and entertainment stores (HMV, Virgin) around town, I decided that it’d be best for me to just make a reservationy order thingy, and so - thanks to the helpful folk at Woolworths - I should be rocking in a matter of weeks. I can’t wait.

My habit of purchasing more handhelds than I need got the better of me too - I spotted a GB Micro going for about £30 and snapped it up, even though I already own a DS. The theory is that it’ll spur me on to repurchase all those GBA titles I sold to originally finance my DS. The reality? I bought it because it’s cute. And cheap.

Finally, in a little follow up to the Wright cross-examination a couple of posts down, I’m currently enjoying Hotel Dusk: Room 215, another “retrograde formula with dated mechanics confined to a linear path”; hmm. Anyway, the atmosphere in the game is really likeable, and even the mini-puzzles are enjoyable, despite being a bit throwaway at times.

So, yeah. I’ve got plenty to keep me busy until GHII arrives, and so I’ll doubtless have more to say shortly; see you then.

qazimod

So I recently bought a new MSPoints card so that I could get the full version of Boom Boom Rocket at the Marketplace, and now I’m wondering what I should do with the rest of my points - hold out for greater things, or make up for my late entrance into the new generation by purchasing older titles?

I was very tempted to download Disposable’s very own 360 Special Edition to remind myself about what I wrote in my Live Arcade feature, but that would be incredibly vain, wouldn’t it? For the moment I think I’ll just wait and see what’s around the corner…

Like Disposable, you’re probably a fan of Capcom’s excellent Phoenix Wright games on the DS and, previously, the GBA (oh, and there was a release on the PC, too, but that’s another story.)

Immediately, at least, Phoenix Wright is a series that’s easy to dislike. It’s a retrograde formula that meanders along a linear path, with simple audio, scant animation and dated mechanics of item manipulation and conversation. It’s impossible to deviate from what the developers want you to do without wasting time or being punished, and there are times when the trials and Psyche-Locks can, at best, have you second-guessing the developer’s intentions and, at worst, have you abusing the ability to save anywhere as you try every option available until you succeed.

I liken it to Final Fantasy VII: I love that game, but I mostly love it for it’s story, characters, and evocative locations. Why? Because it’s gameplay is, being brutally honest, a series of conversations (and maybe the odd minigame) bookended by dozens of random, turn-based, tiresome battles. Battles that, being the hopeless case that I am, I can only win by first going to the World map and beginning a long grind to the point were my adversary is a walkover. It’s the equivalent of Wright’s game-save abuse.

I think that games don’t necessarily have to be delightful and immediate in order to be rewarding; Wright’s more detail-heavy scenarios only serve to make the game a more thought-provoking experience. At the most basic level, this can be seen by the fact that, in so many cases, the real culprit uses a misleading personality to hide their true self (Dolores Willow, April May.) Further cases then build the complexity up to a point where the finale is as headache-inducing as it is ingenious, and the revelation of the truth is nearly always a fitting reward for the hours you spent trying to out-crazy the solutions you were dreaming up: proof that retrograde formulas with dated mechanics confined to linear paths have their place in gaming.

qazimod