Liquid Crystal

When choosing your favorite games of the year, what should the criteria be?  Is it about innovation, refinement, or the emotion it brings out in you?  Each title I’ve selected is easy to get into and lures you into a deeper, specialized concept such as precision coupled with continuous improvement, tension, or discovery.  Enjoy!

Mario Kart Wii - Simple, fun, yet hard to master.  Casual racers will have fun just learning to drive, but more “professional” drivers will be thrilled as they successfully pull off precise maneuvers and juggle multiple threats.  In Mario Kart Wii, you’re not just driving; you’re aligning yourself to the next boost pad, performing a trick in midair that will give you another boost, landing near an opponent and slipstreaming behind them, and then finally throwing your vehicle into a corner with a power slide.  Oh, and don’t forget to watch out for others who will try tirelessly to knock you off course.  And then there are the environmental obstacles…  Mario Kart Wii is an addictive adrenaline rush that gets away with its flaws because of its core gameplay is tested, tweaked, and proven.  In addition to the gameplay, the online ranking system and ghost races help bolster the “just one more” mantra.  The game is packaged with a plastic wheel; thankfully you can choose to play it with a number of alternatives such as my favorite, the Wiimote and nunchuck.

Ace Attorney: Apollo Justice - The Ace Attorney series is more of a visual novel than a game, but they cleverly dish out a little information here and there, doing a superb job at building up tension through storytelling.  When you finally present the damning piece of evidence, the limited interactivity proves its worth in a thrilling climax in the courtroom.  And then there are the characters…  While some are overly cheesy and make a total mockery of the courtroom, the characters are memorable and their dialogue is filled with witty (and some objectionable) humor and allusions.

Dragon Quest IV - By today’s standards, Dragon Quest IV is a limited adventure.  Your options are few and the world is relatively small, but these are also its strengths.  By leaving out so many extras, Dragon Quest IV engages the player through their learning and mastery of its simple mechanics.  The world might be small, but there are plenty of secrets to be found.  The storytelling is still phenomenal in how it divides the the quest into small, digestable chapters, only to come together in a grand finale.

Galaga

Two years ago I captured some photos of various videogames using the long exposure technique. I was mainly interested in the idea of light painting and the patterns that would emerge from all the dancing pixels. In addition to the dazzling array of lights, I noticed that each shot told a story.

The intensity of a boxing match in Mike Tyson’s Punchout! is captured in a way standard screenshots and movies cannot. While we can feel the impact of the blow from a well shot photograph, the barrage of punches in a long exposure shot turns the bout into a supernatural feat.

Galaga transformed more into a traditional light show.  Many of the graphics remain firmly planted in 2D, though the legions of sprites toward the top of the image begin to give the illusion that they are breaking into the third dimension.

The ghosts in Ms. Pac-man begin to take on a more see-through, apparition-like appearance with eerie colored trails of light filling up the pathways.

I apologize for the image quality, this was more of an experiment for me.  In addition to these, I took a photograph of Bubble Bobble, but it’s not quite ready for display at the moment.  I would like to do Mario Bros. and Balloon Fight in the future.  Are there any games you’d like to see shot?