Single Player only?

So when I first started playing video games on a home console it was on the Nintendo System . . . at my sister’s house.  It was my brother-in-law’s and I would play it while I was there babysitting my niece.  The first console I got to call my own was the Super Nintendo.  I had asked for a NES for Christmas but my mom said the salesperson said the SNES was the latest and greatest.  I wasn’t happy at first but I grew to love it.  Mostly because I could get all the games I liked on the NES (a trend Nintendo has a repeating their games when a new console is released) but also because it was the only system I had for a long time.

I remember when I got my first Playstation.  It was a hand me down from my brother because he had recently got a PS2 and it was backwards compatible so he didn’t need the PS any more.  At first I was skeptical but at that time I had a lot more expendable income, I was able to branch out even more and get a wide variety of games.  I also found that Playstation had more game I wanted to play then Nintendo did at that time.  I eventually bought my own PS2 and I fell in love with that system more than anything else.

When the Xbox system came out I wasn’t really interested in it at all.  That was until I saw that it had Star Wars Battlefront and I watched my brother play it.  I wasn’t interested in shooters (didn’t have a good experience with the ones that I bought (and traded in immediately) for the Playstation).  And I wasn’t interested in playing online.  I couldn’t resist and I almost bought it on Playstation but since my brother had it on Xbox I decided to go buy that system and play it on that console.

Why am I telling you all of this (since I’ve probably told you something like this before)?  Well I started to notice a trend on my game buying habits between Playstation and Xbox.  It started with the PS2 and original Xbox and has continued ever since.  But now things are changing once again.

The games that I bought for Playstation were single player games.  Occasionally there would be a multiplayer game but only local co-op and no online play.  For Xbox games I would get the multiple player online games.  If it was something I wanted to play with friends, it was something I got for the Xbox.  I really wasn’t buying single player games for the Xbox.  I viewed my PS2 as single player and my Xbox as multiplayer.  That’s how it’s always been.  But something has changed.

While I make a lot more money now than I did back when this all started, I also have a mortgage and a lot more expenses now that I didn’t have then.  Once again I find myself in a position that I have to be a little selective in the games that I buy.  I can’t afford them all . . . at least if I want to have food to eat and a roof over my head.  I’ve had to make some tough choices of what games I have to have now . . . and what games can wait until later.

After a lot of soul searching I’ve figured out a compromise with myself.  And it all comes down to the type of game and how I want to play it.  If it’s a single player game only I’m not going to buy it right away.  I’ll wait until I have more money or when it goes on sale.  That usually means that I don’t play those game right away.  Sometimes it’s several months, or maybe a year or more, before I get around to purchasing it and playing it.  That makes it hard on me as my friends usually get it right away and really want to talk about it but they don’t want to spoil it for me.  There have been times when I play with friends but I have to exit the party for a while so they can talk about it without spoiling anything for me.  When they are done discussing it they invite me back to the party and we continue playing as normal.  They only problem I have is that they think 6 months is long enough to be careful about spoilers.  After that they don’t think they have to be cautious talking about a game around me.  Unfortunately, I might not have bought it within that 6 months, let alone starting playing it.

Now, if the game is mostly multiplayer based (like Star Wars Battlefront or a Call of Duty, etc,) I’ll get those games right at launch, or as close as I can afford.  Why?  Because it’s no fun to pick up a multiplayer games 6 months or a year after launch and you find yourself playing against people who have mastered the game already or . . . well, everyone has left and moved on to the next best game out there.  If there’s a possibility that either one of those scenarios is going to happen I’m going to make every effort to buy that game and get in on the action while it’s still new and hot.

That being said, it has to be a game that I really want to play online with friends . . . and maybe strangers.  If I’m not going to enjoy playing online after a couple of weeks, it’s a game I probably won’t get.  I’m getting very picky in my old age.

So picky in fact, that I’m starting to notice that the number of multiplayer games that I buy each year is getting fewer and fewer.  I’m finding that, even playing with friends, I’m really not enjoying the online experience as much as I use to.  Now I’m more in to single player games and things I can consume on my own.  They don’t have to be linear games.  They could be open world as long as they are single player.

I find that really interesting at this time because EA just announced that they are closing Visceral Studios and reworking the single player linear story game they were working on for the Star Wars universe and they are scraping that and going to build something more fitting today’s appetite of what they think gamers want.  Apparently that’s multiplayer games with lots of microtransactions and loot boxes.  For some reason I’m just not in to the that at this point in my life.

The games that I like to watch on YouTube and Twitch and the games I like to play now are all single player, story driven games.  Give me a game that lets me experience something for myself.  Not be reminded that there’s always someone faster, smarter and with better eyes than me who’s going to kick my ass in an online match.  To me, that’s just not fun anymore.

So why mention the games consoles earlier?  Because I’m finding it very weird to only be gravitating to single player games on my Xbox One.  It feels strange to be on that system and NOT be playing with my friends.  I love playing the games (I wouldn’t be playing them if I didn’t) but I miss having things to play with my friends.  

I’m sure that will all change in November when Star Wars Battlefront comes out.  I’m sure almost everyone on my friends list will be getting it.  That’s where I first met most of them in the original Star Wars Battlefront game.  Maybe that will rekindle my love of multiplayer games and take me back to the glory games.  Until then, I guess both my Playstation and Xbox consoles are single player only.

Trophies vs. Achievements

So I've had my PS3 for awhile and even picked up a few more games (Journey, Flower, Flow (?), Resistance 1, 2 & 3, Little Big Planet, and Overlord: Raising Hell).  I've even finished (play to credits) Journey and got a lot of the achievements . . . I mean trophies for that game.

It took me a while to get comfortable with calling something trophies instead of achievements but I don't get hung up on it as much any more.  That doesn't mean I like it though.

There's only 3 levels of trophies to get.  Bronze, Silver and Gold.  There is a Platinum level but so far those trophies are only for getting every other trophy in a game.  How lame is that?  I'm assuming the Bronze trophies are easy-peasy ones to get.  The Silver will take a little bit more moderate work to get.  And the Gold are ones you might have to plan out and carefully do something to unlock those.  I don't know because I don't have any Gold trophies.

The biggest problem I have with trophies is that I don't really think of them as a reward for doing something (unless it's Gold).  I've been in enough dance competitions in my life to know and associate a Bronze trophy with being a loser.  A Silver trophy with being the first loser.  They're consolation prizes as far as I'm concerned.  If you get a Bronze trophy that just means that there are 2 other people who did the same thing, but better than you.

I know that's not how the trophies are created and assigned to tasks in video games.  But that's how they are associated in my mind.  Since the Bronze trophies are the easiest things to get they fall under the impression that anyone can do that.  If so, what's so special about a trophy for that?

Now achievements for Xbox are assigned a point value.  They could be 5 points, 10, 15, 20, 25, 50 or even 100 points or more.  The value of the points does have some correlating relevance to how difficult it might be to get a particular achievement.  If you're gunning for a 100 point whopper you can expect to have to spend a good deal of time working towards that achievement before you unlock it.  Also, there are some 5 point achievements that you might not get because you made a choice in the game that steered you away from that particular achievement.

There's an individual value to each achievement earned.  You and a friend could have played the same game but have different achievements and also a total different gamer score in the game.  You can compare your 675 with their 550 and know who's probably played more and invested more in the game.

With trophies all you get is a number.  Ten trophies earned: 7 Bronze, 2 Silver and 1 Gold.  Your friend might also have ten trophies but they could have 9 Bronze and 1 Silver.  You both have ten trophies, so how can you tell how much one has played the game more than another?

And what does the levels mean?  I was just barely level 2 and I earned a Bronze trophy and my percentage went up 6 percentage points.  After my next Bronze trophy my level percentage only went up 3 percentage points.  What gives with that.  I just don't understand how one Bronze trophy could be weighted more than another Bronze trophy when they are exactly the same thing.  If you're only giving Bronze, Silver and Gold trophies you can't have one Bronze trophy counting for more than another Bronze trophy without telling me how or why.  Seems a bit suspect to me.

As for the Platinum trophies, I don't get it.  It's like "here have another one because you got all the others".  I think the satisfaction you get with earning trophies or achievements should be for those individual tasks.  Passing out another trophy just because you got all the others is stupid and has no value.  Getting the last trophy (not counting Platinums) or achievement in a game should be all the reward you need for having "completed" a game.  But getting these "finishing" Platinum trophies is like going to a dance competition and winning all the awards that they have categories for, but then having the judges say "here's one more for winning them all".  There's nothing tied to the trophy.  Your 100% completion for trophies and achievements could already been seen on your list without getting another one just to say "way to go".

I understand that Playstation was trying to duplicate and "improve" on Xbox's achievements, but doing things in their own way.  I just don't get it.  I feel less impressed and motivated with trying to get trophies because there are only 3 levels of skill and work involved in getting them.  And don't get me started on the lame notification pop-up that shows when you get one.

Trophies also feel vague and tacked on to activities without any thought on how a game is played or the challenges at certain points in the game play.  "Oh, this looks like a good spot to earn a trophy".  They seem to highlight some of the "not that exciting moments" in the gameplay.  Sometimes if feels very anti-climatic when you do unlock a trophy.

In Final Fantasy X HD remastered there's an achievement for winning your first Blitzball game.  The first game you play you really haven't learned how to play that much.  But winning or losing will generate a different outcome after the match.  So why not have a different trophy (or harder trophy) to earn if you can win the first match the very first time you get to play Blitzball.

When I played FFX on the PS2 I didn't win my first time.  Or my second or third time trying that first game.  I think it took my 5 or 6 tries and reloading the save before I understood enough about Blitzball to win that first match and get Wakka the trophy.

That's a challenge for a gamer and what we thrive on.  We play and replay games to try something new or earn achievements/trophies for doing different things.  If we're going to have these challenges, the least thing they can do is reward us for completing them comparative to the effort we put in to achieve them.  But please, just not with a Platinum trophy.

I blogged a LONG time ago that I wanted my gamer score on my tombstone when I died.  Unfortunately I can't say the same thing about my count of PS3 trophies.  They'll just have to collect dust in my PSN account and no one will ever know.

Call of Pokemon Duty and the quest for 1.0

So I got Call of Duty: Black Ops II for xmas and I've been playing it a lot with some friends.  I've really tried to be aware of my kill/death ratio without it interfering with my game play.  After all, the less I die the more it helps my time.  I was stuck at .65 for the longest time before I really started to focus on what I was doing.  I go through the map much slower and I'm very cautious.  It's a little different that how everyone else seems to play the game.  People are running around like chickens with their heads cut off.  So far I've got my kill/death ratio up to .81.  It's getting harder to inch it upwards but I think that's a much more respectable number than what I had before.

While playing Black Ops I've also noticed something.  The player has the chance to design his own emblem that other plays can see on the menu screens and when someone kills you.  Apparently you can also put the emblem on your gun as well.  (I haven't unlocked that yet.)  What I've noticed is that a lot of the emblems being created are Pokemon related (or porn related but that's a whole nother issue). 

Are the players creating the emblems 8 and 9 year old kids playing an M-rated game?  Or is Pokemon to this generation like Star Wars to mine?  I am a Jedi.  I will always be a Jedi.  Are there 20something adults running around with a secret Pikachu in the pocket?  Should I be bothered . . . or maybe disturbed by this?

At least it's better than the other pics I've seen created.

A little bit of this, a little bit of that and whole lot of boredom

I've been playing a bunch of things lately.  I got bored trying to learn things in FFTactics so I switched to Final Fantasy II.  I finished the first one on the PSP but I honestly can't remember anything about the game.  FF2 is different and I'm having a hard time getting the hang of it.  If you attack physically those stats go up (but magical stats go down) and the reverse is true.  My problem is I get into dungeons and I don't want to use up my magic points because Ether is so damn expensive so I use a lot of physical attacks.  I know I'm going to be screwed later on in the game when I need that powerful mage and I don't have one.

I also dusted off the old Xbox system and hooked it up for awhile.  I restarted Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast.  It was one of the games dain and I decided to "finished" a long time ago.  Actually since 7/16/2006 to be exact.  I could have played it on the 360 but I didn't want to.  I know the exact date that started all this because I printed the email and apparently I've been using it as a page marker for the strategy guide.  I stopped playing because I got lost in the game and the guide was no help.  Strategy guides have come a long way since then.  I figured the best thing to do was start over (with the cheat code BUBBLE entered - - I don't take any damage).  I played for awhile . . . and got bored.

So, I reconnected my PS2 and put in Summoner.  That's another one of those "let's finish them this year [2006] games.  This time the guide helped and I feel better about how to play the game.  But I got bored because I'm just replaying the stuff I had already done since my stuff was stolen.

So, I went back to my 360.  I tired some zombies in the Dr. Ned DLC for Borderlands since I've finished the game (I'll do a review of it later).  But the zombies don't make any noises when they come up on you and I got tired of being jumped when I'm trying to do something.  Although those flying things are more annoying.

So, I decided to play some online stuff by myself.  It's really hard to find friends to play with these days.  But that's okay I play better without them.  It's true.  It doesn't matter what game we play but when I play with friends I end up sub 500 on my kill/death ratio.  I'll die 2x at least for every kill I get.  I don't know why this happens but it does.  Because I've been playing solo mostly (except when Natra sends me an invite) I've noticed that my skills are getting better.  I've only had one match with a 1/2 kill/death ratio; everything else has been much better than that.  I've even gone positive once or twice.  I'll usually finish with about 10 kills to 12 deaths or something like that.  Just over this weekend alone my kill/death ratio went from .551 to .571.  Not bad considering I've got a lot of deaths under my belt in that game.  I'm also finding the game more fun to play now that I'm doing better.  I don't get frustrated as much and I don't let a death discourage me.  I do have moments of panic when I'm under that .500 threshold but I always seem to find a way to do better before the match is over.  And I'm finally getting some of those maps.  I guess I now need to try playing with friends to see if I can translate this success when I play with them.  Any volunteers?

So that's about it.   A little PSP, Xbox, PS2, and 360 gaming all in the same week or two.  I've even been tempted to pull out my GameCube to work on that "let's finish" game (Super Mario Sunshine).  And I've got an itch to play my old N64 as well.  I've either got too little of an attention span or too much boredom.  You decide.

Sleeping with the fishes

So yesterday I thought I'd pull out the old Xbox (original version) and play some games the way they were meant to be played. Unfortunately things didn't turn out that way.

It started with the fact that I couldn't connect to Xbox Live at all from my original Xbox. I knew they were stopping games on the 15th but I thought there were still games out there you could play online. Maybe the servers were full. I tested my connection and it failed at the Xbox Live stage so my system was okay (although a little dusty).

So I couldn't play online but I could still play games right? First I had to disconnect the Ethernet cords so I wouldn't get the online error message every time I changed games. And I changed them a lot.

I've been replacing all my games since the break in but I've been testing the original Xbox games out on my 360. Most of them can play on the newer system. Some of them can't. So I started to test those games. Unfortunately some of them were getting disk read errors. Yeah me. I'd put a disk in and it wouldn't load at all. Or I would get through the title screen only to start the actual gameplay and find the game freeze up before getting a disk error.

I put all those disks aside with the note to find their case and maybe try to replace them . . . again. What I found interesting was that some games that played on my 360 were having problems on my Xbox. And sometimes it would have problems the first time but the second time I put it in it would work fine. There were even some that had issued on the 360 that played just fine on the Xbox. I think I'll have to do more testing before I start replacing games a second time.

I ended up with six possible replacements. And four duplicates.

Yes, when replacing games I actually replaced some of them more than once. I didn't really have a good system to keep track of items I was bidding on in ebay vs. items I had won, paid for and received. Throw in the fact that I had to bid on 7 or 8 different auctions in order to win some games and you can see why I might have been confused.

Some of those duplicate games I already have. Others I'm waiting to receive in the mail. I figure I might just sell them to GameStop and use the store credit to pick up some of the last games on my list or maybe some new ones (I've picked up a couple new games in the process, but more on that later).

There is a duplicate game that I might give to a friend if he ever comes back online. It's Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. I've been dying to play that game (and the original one) but all of my friends have sold their copies back a long time ago. I'd give it to any one of them if they would play with me but one of them might need the help financially more than the others.

I know I won't get much store credit for old Xbox games but I just don't understand why people would sell back good games (besides the duplicate issue I'm having). If you really don't need the money for something why not keep it and enjoy it for years to come?

Don't get me wrong, I do know what it's like to need money. I had a job a long time ago that was really hard to even live pay check to pay check. I've pawned items to make it to pay day (and then got those items back). One month it would be the Tv, the next month the stereo, etc. I lived off of Ramen noodles and sometimes hot dogs (sans bun because I couldn't afford 'em) or potatoes. Maybe that experience has taught me to cherish and keep the things that make me happy and entertain me instead of toss them to the wind as my fancy strikes me. But now the original Xbox is dead.

So after three hours of testing games and trying to get online on my original Xbox I went to bed wondering if the Xbox has gone the way of the Dodo bird. Is it extinct? Will you ever be able to connect to Xbox Live on your original system again? Is there any games left that you can play online? I don't know. It was late. I was tired. I went to bed. While my sleep was refreshing for me I couldn't help but think the original Xbox experience is now "sleeping with the fishes". May it rest in peace.

I'm not just a one system gamer girl.

As much as I love my Xbox 360 I do have other gaming systems. A PS2, Xbox, computer, Game Cube, N64, Super Nintendo, GBA SP, PSP, and an XYZ. Okay, I made up that last one. I just haven't played those systems in a long time.

My PS2 is currently functioning as a stand for my 360. My Game Cube has been shoved to the back of my entertainment center. I'm not even sure where my original Xbox is. My GBA SP and PSP are tossed in a bag somewhere and my N64 and Supertendo are working on their dust bunny collections. I do get on the computer occasionally to check emails but after a day at the office staring at a computer screen and sitting in uncomfortable chair I'm not all that inclined to sit and do the same thing at home.

I blame my lack of playing other systems to Xbox Live. It's always a blast to get online and see which of your friends are plugged in and what they're playing. Even looking at the cute little pink Pac Man ghost your tough talking and tough playing friend picked as his avatar is a hoot. Player's mottos change often . . . sometimes hourly. And when your testosterone filled buddies, who once gave you a hard time for playing Hearts, are now seen playing Backgammon or Viva Pinata it only adds to the tauntings you can hand out to them later. (And don't believe them when they say their wives were playing.)

I will have to tear myself away from Xbox Live and my 360 if my other systems even have a hope of getting played again. It's not like I don't have any great and thoroughly engrossing games for those systems. (Yes, the Game Cube and N64 have some of those games too. Have you heard of Pikmin or Rouge Squadron?) It's just when I play those other systems I wonder what my Xbox friends are doing.

Have they past me on the leaderboards for Pac Man? Did they finish a game before me? Did they find a way to get that elusive achievement that's been the bane of my existence in Bejeweled 2? Is their GamerScore higher than mine now?

Yet at the same time I'm wondering what happens next in Final Fantasy X-2. Which is the real world in Chrono Cross? Where will Jak and Daxter or Ratchet and Clank go next? What do I have to do to beat the final boss in Pikmin in one day? How can I save that Galaxy far, far away? And just who is Solid Snake, Samus or Master Chief?

If I didn't have to go to work 5 days a week I'd be closer to finding out those answers, and many more. That is if I can put my Xobx 360 aside to plug another system in. Maybe I'll give it a try tonight. After all, I'm not just a one system gamer girl.