It's been a while...

It’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog, the reason being: I’m lazy. I’ve always wanted to keep updates current but I can't seem to get off my ass and  actually write. Because of this I decided to give you guys a quick update on what I've been playing lately.

Chrono Trigger DS

I’m surprised I’ve gotten so deep into this game without succumbing to gamer A.D.D. It’s really interesting how fresh this game still feels after so many years. Most notably, the way the game plays with the choices you make. That entire court room scene blew me away, how all of the little choices you made at the faire reflected how you were judged in the court room. The things you did at the faire seemed very small and seemed to have little consequence to them. The game is tricky like that, you can’t actually manipulate the outcome of your choices the first time you are faced with them. The game makes you give it your truest decisions. 

What bothers me in a game like Fallout 3 is that the outcomes of the choices you are faced with are very obvious. One is an evil path, one is neutral, and the other is a good path. What I like about Chrono Trigger is that the choices I made are reflective of myself. The things I did at the faire were in a split seconds decision straight from my intuition and soon I felt the consequences. Because of these offhand choices I made, the game had shown me a little bit of who I am. I like that feeling, I’d rather have a moral choice be honest than the contrived bullshit I get out of Fallout 3.

In Fallout 3’s defense, its moral choice system is really made for character development so the outcomes have to be obvious to craft your character in how you want. I’m just not that interested in developing a character. I want true consequence from my decisions; in Chrono Trigger they offer me that: it shows me what I’m really like as a person.

Metal Gear Solid 2

I finally managed to come back to this game. The last time I played it I was pretty young and hadn’t paid any attention to the story. It was nice going back to this game since I've neglected to ever revisit it.

One thing I noticed while playing MGS2 is that, playing through this game really made me look at MGS4 in a different light. I almost like MGS2 more than MGS4. Its weird, when Kojima made MGS4 I was aware it was time to have all our questions answered, while I’m happy they were answered I almost feel soured because there were no questions asked. In a game like MGS2 you’re always in the dark, there is this high mist of mystery around you for the entire game until the climax. In MGS4 you were never in the dark because this was Solid Snake’s time to take control. You were in the know for most of the happenings and only getting answers to questions, never raising any. I seem to enjoy MGS more when I have the feeling that I’m being lied to by some higher power and that someone will stab me in the back eventually. I never had that fear or sense of confusion in MGS4.

I’ll probably write a longer blog about this somewhere down the line because there is just so much that I’m learning from going back into the MGS timeline.

Well that's been me, hopefully enough I'll be able to get to a much bigger blog about the Metal Gear series as a whole but until then I'll be seeing ya'.