MichaelandChrissy.com

My first video game memories were of the Atari 2600.  I first saw one when I was five, and the controls were easy enough for me to play “Combat” against anyone.  I still think that “Adventure” is the best game ever (”You were a DOT, man, and you LIKED IT THAT WAY!”).  I eventually got one of my own around 1981, and played it non-stop on a tiny 12-inch black and white TV in my room.  “River Raid”, “Pitfall”, and “Yars Revenge” were some of my favorite games.

I heard a rumor of the first Nintendo gaming system at an arcade.  Some kids playing “Super Mario Brothers” were talking about a new Atari that could play games just like the arcade games.  I didn’t believe it, not after the debacle that was Atari’s “Pac-Man”.  But the NES did come out, from Nintendo (not Atari, which was synonymous with gaming until then), and I got one for Christmas in 1985.  I even got a small color TV by then.  I remember the hype before the first Zelda game came out, and was amazed that you could play it TWICE.

“Castlevania” and “Metroid” were a couple of my favorite games for the NES.  My friends and I rented video games from Blockbuster Video every weekend.  We would play “Punch-Out” all night, yet never beat Mike Tyson, and then switched to “Metal Gear” (back before Snake went all 3D).  I didn’t play sports in high school, so video games took up a lot of my time then.  Although I had upgraded to the Super Nintendo by ‘91, I didn’t play games much while in college, except for “Warcraft” and “Diablo” on the PC.

It wasn’t until I got my first place, and my first roommate, Carl, that I started playing video games again.  My roomie introduced me to “Resident Evil 2″ on the Playstation, and we would play “Final Fantasy VII” into the wee hours of the night.  “Symphony of the Night” was the best Castlevania game ever, and we explored every room of both castles and maxed out the levels on every familiar before we were happy.  We played more Playstation than we watched TV (mostly Star Trek and Farscape).

Carl got hooked on racing games, and he switched to “Gran Tourismo”.  I never like racing games, so I moved back to PC games instead.  “Baldur’s Gate” started my great love of RPG games.  I’ve followed the D&D game franchise ever since.  “Starcraft” was another big one, but I didn’t play it online.  I would play “Diablo 2″ across the internet all night, however, to an almost unhealthy amount.  But I stuck with PC gaming, since computer games looked better and were more fun than console games (depending on your hardware, of course).

I’ve focused more on RPG games in the last few years, which are usually much better on the PC than on the console systems.  I played “Elder Scrolls: Morrowind” for nine months straight, along with the two expansion packs.  Based on my Morrowind addiction, I was first in line when “Elder Scrolls: Oblivion” came out in 2006.  All told, I probably played Oblivion for about six months, and that was before the “Shivering Isles” expansion pack came out.  I’ve had a lot of fun with computer games this year as well, most recently with “Gears of War”, “Crysis” and “Titan Quest”.

It’s looking like consoles are finally starting to overpower computers today though.  Some games, like “Star Wars: Force Unleashed”, won’t even be available for the PC, since the developers know that you would need a Power Rig to run it.  I’m not quite ready to trade in my PC games for XBOX games though.  But that didn’t stop me from getting a Wii last June!  I do like the casual gaming style and the fitness aspects of the Wii.  I barely even consider the Wii as gaming, but I enjoy the shooting games and the Wii Fit balance games.

I think that my next batch of fond memories will revolve around family gaming.  I can’t wait for Aiden to be old enough to play video games with me.  Not the NC-17 games that I’m used to playing, surely, but he’ll want age-appropriate games.  I’ll make certain that he spends time doing real-life activities (sports, music, karate, etc.) as well, but I think that we’ll bond most over video games.  Who knows what gaming will be like by the time Gavin is ready to pick up his first controller?  It should be interesting to find out!

I beat the Titan Quest expansion pack last night.  The big villain of the game, “Hades”, was kicking my butt repeatedly, but I came back fresh and took him out.  I didn’t want to stop playing on Saturday night, since I would have to clear a path back to his throne room again if I did, but it was 2AM and I couldn’t stay up any longer. Besides, I love the loot, and getting there is like strolling a path strewn with Gigantes armor.

Hades has three separate forms, which threw me for a loop because I wasn’t expecting him to upgrade.  Only one other enemy, Charon, had ever upgraded before.  Hades’ first form is like a very tall and scary humanoid, kind of like Dracula.  Once you bring him to about half of his life bar, he turns into what I call his “Resident Evil” form, taller and uglier with a huge tentacled arm.  Once that version is defeated, he turns into a huge blue cloud monster with very powerful attacks.

Once I had 32 skill points in Warfare (fighter skills), I moved about ten points from the “Battle Rage” tree into the “Ancestral Horn” skill.  This allows you to summon three ghostly figures to fight by your side.  It starts off fairly weak, but at tenth level I had five very beefy fighters on my side.  The downside is that they only last for 24 seconds, and there is a pretty long cooldown period. This spell is integral to my patented “Ride the Lightning” technique.

This technique involves a “Sky’s Rage” scroll, which summons a huge lightning storm that deals massive amounts of damage for fifteen seconds and, in most cases, paralyzes your enemy.  They’re pricey at 300,000 gold, but well worth it.  Employ the scroll, summon your Ancestral Horn buddies, and commence to whaling on your boss enemy with melee attacks.  I used this method on all of the Machae Generals and Vault Stone Empusas without fail.

I was surprised at how easy Hades’ first two forms were, since his gatekeeper, “Night’s Mistress” (the Empusa with the Soul Stone), was harder to kill than his first and second forms.  I just whaled on those in melee.  His third form was tougher, and that was what I got stuck on last night.  I gave him the old “Ride the Lightning” technique and he went down pretty quickly.  He actually lasted a few seconds longer than the scroll, which was impressive, but I only had a few more hits to kill him.

The credits were pretty cool too.  I watched through two cycles, since the monster models randomly appeared to the left until you cut out.  I didn’t recognize most of them, since I hadn’t been fighting them close up like that.  They’re pretty ugly; the developers did a good job with them.  The “epic” difficulty level was also unlocked.  I might have to pass on that though, since I’ve got other games to get to now.

I installed Titan Quest on Thursday, and I’m glad that I installed the expansion pack along with it.  It’s like Diablo 2, except with Romans.  From the looks of it, all of the features that make it better than Diablo 2 (from a user interface perspective, since I can’t speak to the story yet) come from the expansion pack, “Immortal Throne“.  Stuff like the caravan driver would have been a huge thing in online Diablo.  The caravan driver holds items for you so that you don’t have to keep it in your own inventory. And finally, unlimited arrows!

Unlike Diablo, there are eight different character classes to choose from.  I decided to start with “Warfare” as a skill domain, but you can only choose two skill domains.  You get one to start with, and one more once you hit level 8.  There’s just too many to choose from, and I had a hard time deciding.  So I stuck with “fighter” for the timebeing.  I might enhance it with “Earth” (fire magic) or “Nature” (druid magic) later.  There’s definitely some replay value here, at least, which is better than the first person shooters that I’ve been playing lately. 

The inventory screen is a step up from Diablo as well.  When you move your mouse over an item, the stats for the item are displayed in a box along with the stats of the item that you currently have equipped, so that you can compare the two side-by-side.  When trading with a blacksmith, you have the option to “untrade” before you complete your transaction. I’d really like to be able to carry more, since I love to cart loot back to the villages for cash, and I’ve read that you increase your inventory size periodically in the game.

So far, I’ve gotten to the Spartan camp, cleared out the undead camp just before that, and carried all the loot back to Helos (before I found that there was a blacksmith in the Spartan camp).  There’s no caravan driver there though, so I’ve had to teleport back to Helos to drop off the powerful stuff that I can’t use yet.  Currently, I’m using a spear and a bunch of magic armor.  Not a bad setup for a level 5 guy.  I running around the fields now, trying to find that Centaur boss. We’ll see if this one is as awesome as Diablo 2 was.