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Home / Archive: December 2006
On Friday, Play Magazine (Dave Halverson) gave me a Wii for my Birthday. It is the first of the next-gen systems that I own, and the one I was most excited about.
He told me to go out and get a copy of Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. I did just that, and also grabbed Trauma Center and Call of Duty 3.
Why Zelda? I’m going to be working on the year-in-review issue of Play, and need to get a little more familiar with the game before I blindly assert that Final Fantasy 12 is the best thing I’ve played all year. I gobbled up the other two games to get acquainted with Wii’s delightful play mechanics.
Now, I haven’t played Zelda yet (I’m waiting for Jim Woods to come over), but Trauma Center and CoD3 have already been in the machine. I’ve also designed my first set of Miis (onscreen buddies), and played through a bunch of WiiSports with Darren.
The system is incredible. Five Stars, A Plus, 100 percent. Lucky Star on the board. Free dessert.
But what about the games? Trauma Center is like Operation: The Video Game. It’s a charming, melodramatic doctor simulator. You do simulated surgery on cancers and ulcers, and a hot nurse screams at you. It’s a huge amount of fun, and very novel since I never played the DS version.
The other title, Call of Duty 3, is a WWII game, focusing on the mainland battles in 1944. It’s a First Person Shooter, and game-play is handled through a combination of Wiimote and Nunchuck controller. Point the wand at the screen, and it’s like looking down the barrel of your gun.
Now, I play Halo frequently, so I’m familiar with FPS games. I mean, I was brought up on Doom, Quake, etc, and spent college playing Perfect Dark. A common complaint about FPS games is that the perspective makes people sea-sick, or just generally uneasy. I myself have never had motion sickness …
… until now. I feel completely nauseated, and just want to lie down. The delay between the Wiimote and screen action is driving my brain crazy, and my stomach is threatening to refuse breakfast. And I’m starting to panic a bit. Is it just the rushed design of COD that is giving me butterflies, or is this going to be a Wii problem for me?
Or is it possible that my breakfast was just bad?
I’m praying that this is temporary, because if the most immersive games leave me feeling sick, what am I going to do when we start wearing helmets to play?
I’m going to go drink some more water.
Though my Anime intake lately has slowed, I still get a chance to watch a new show now and again. I’m up to episode 28 or something on the easily digested Nana, have dropped in a few episodes of Red Garden, and have put in a little time with Mushishi. Also, I reviewed Kimameki Project for Play, and Tokko for Rocket, but the truth is nothing has grabbed me for a long time.
Anime as part of my job has been a double-edged sword. I feel more pressure to watch shows — to find series that are rich — but that same pressure makes it difficult for me to immerse myself in a story. When you’re anxious to feel, it makes it difficult to know if your emotions are genuine. And after a long drought, I’m sort of desperate to be in an Anime relationship.
This in mind, I think I’ve fallen in love with a show again.
It takes two paragraphs of disclaimers to let me grapple with a bit of vulnerability, I guess.
The show is Bokura ga Ita, and it’s a shoujo romance set in high-school. The show’s look is water-colored and washed out, and the dialogue has a deliberate, patient pace. I watched some last night, and then again this morning … it feels like a quieter His and Her Circumstances, or a less comedic Honey and Clover.
If a show has a moment in the first few episodes that makes me gasp or sigh or nod in agreement, I figure I’ll watch it through to the conclusion. Bokura ga Ita gets additional kudos for sneaking into my heart and unsettling me without set-up.
The moment was this:
“He’s the worst.
But people will still come.
Because of Yano, everyone was cool with the play.
You know that type of person, right? The one that brings a soccer ball to recess, so all of the other kids cheer and go out to the field to play? And when that type of person leaves, everyone just gets bored and quits playing.
The type that has a really strong presence.
He’s one of those types and I … really admire that part of him.”
Imagine it with a simple, melancholy piano melody, and you have a scene that you could find in any shoujo series … but was just so well-executed here that I couldn’t help but smile.
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