Games I Couldn't Finish

We've all been there. You're having fun, stomping on enemies and collecting items. You're trying to experience every minute detail, grinding your way through to 100% completion. But then something happens. You no longer have the drive to see the plot unfold, to learn all of the secrets and motivations of the characters. In short, you've lost your purpose in playing the game. What's the point, right?

Now, when I rent or purchase a game, I have every intention of finishing it to the very end, 100% completed or not. But even I have a list of many, many video games that I never got around to beating for one reason or another. It could have been the monotonous and simple gameplay, the lackluster story, the crappy graphics, or the one-dimensional (or unnecessary multi-dimensional) character drama. From Battle Toads, Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts, and Legend of Mana, all the way up to Mega Man X5, Red Dead Revolver, and even Grand Theft Auto IV, I have picked up and put down many a game. Here are two of the recent games that I have unfortunately lost the luster in completing.

Shin Megami Tensei II

So, I am a huge fan of the SMT franchise. From the oringal saga (SMTI to Nocturne), to most of the spinoffs (Digital Devil Saga, Devil Summoner, Persona), something about mixing the occult, mythology, and Japanese settings (Taisho 20 to modern to post-apocalyptic) into mostly press-turn based RPG games is pretty sweet. So when a very cool game translation and hacking group released the original SMT games from SNES, I was all over it. The first one was simple enough. It took a while to get used to the first person view, looking at gray walls most of the time. But the gameplay was awesome. Recruit or destroy demons, making your way through the last remnants of Tokyo to find out if the two main antagonist groups (Gaian or Messian) will reign supreme. You could choose which side to join, or stay the neutral path (which meant more battles and boss fights).

Then, in the sequel, SMT II, something didn't feel right. The gameplay is pretty much the same, with better graphics, but the story is more convoluted and the dungeons are a SERIOUS PAIN IN THE GLUTEUS! Without a walkthrough, this game is pretty much impossible to go through, if you want to complete all of the sidequests and such. I discovered this the first time around when I started the game. There is a point where a mutant wants you to gather six separate body parts of the protector of Tokyo, Masakados. You can't simply teleport back to these temples where the parts are. Nooooo...you've got to go through fun dungeons to get them. So with this prospect in mind, I just stopped playing. Fast forward to three months later, and I felt the itch to start again. I made it all the way to the second to last dungeon, but guess what, the thing is massive!

Seriously, welcome to Hell, have fun!

I got through the first floor, realized I wasn't ready to fight Beelzebub (Lord of the Flies), and shut her down for good. Now will I ever truly give up on the game? Well since I'm writing about it, I'd say no. But with other games queued up on my shelf, who knows when I'll feel like strolling though Castle Kether again.

Kingdom Hearts

Will you like this game? Yes! Or maybe no...hee hee...

I'm a pretty big fan of Disney. I grew up on the movies and still go to Disneyland every year. So when I heard there was going to be an RPG based off the countless Disney icons, and it was being made by Square-Enix no less, I was pretty psyched. I got the game, and for some reason, I never really wanted to play it. It lay wrapped on my video game shelf for a long time, until this year in fact. After playing the Enix classic Dragon Quest 8, I was still in RPG-playing mode. KH was there, so I figured why not?

Well let me tell you. This game starts off slow. You have a dream sequence, fight your shadow, then spend a bunch of time leveling up slowly on the Destiny Islands. The characters are okay. I still don't know why Sora has Shaquille O'Neal sized shoes, though. It's fun seeing the Square characters in the various Disney worlds. But by the time I beat the Deep Jungle level, the simplicity of the gameplay and the repeating mundane tasks just got boring. Beating up Cloud and the Cerberus was fun. The Alice In Wonderland level was great. But the "worlds" are basically very small, room-like dungeons with hidden areas. And if you want to get all of the item chests, you spend alot of time frustrating yourself with the awkward camera angles and crappy jump button.

You bored? Yeah, me too..

So will I ever finish Kindom Hearts? I want to say maybe, well...probably, damn...I really want to like the game. The story is pretty interesting, and the multitude of characters from the Final Fantasy and Disney realms in awesome. I want to get around to playing KH2 and the pseudo-sequel on the Gameboy Advance. But the gameplay issues and just plain boringness of the combat is keeping me from doing so. Maybe someone will convince me otherwise, but until then, this case is going to collect dust.

Two-Player Mayhem!

So, as I said in my first post, my best friend of twenty years is moving to Minnesota for his job.

We've definitely had some great memories, triumphs, and certain things that are better left forgotten. But one of the things that we will never forget and will always share is our love for video games. Even while he's in the land of 1000 Lakes and I'm in the Golden State, we can still kick butt together through Xbox Live or PC gaming. To honor his departure, we had our last beer and taquito fueled all-nighter playing our favorite two-player games on our favorite console, the NES.

This is a list of what we played throughout the years, and our favorites for whatever strange reason. So here we go!



5. Contra Force

Okay, so don't get me wrong. We do play the original Contra and Super C, but Contra Force holds a special place in our hearts. The four characters have their own special weapons that can be upgraded. How can you go wrong with dudes named Burns, Iron, Smith, and Beans? When we first played through I thought they were A-Team rejects. But as the game went on it was fun to play as the different teammates and their various weapons. The levels were interesting enough. The one where you jump from chain to chain took a few tries. Maybe we were retarded, but on the overhead level with the boats we didn't know where to go. We just kept running back and forth shooting. Of course you needed to go on one of the smaller boats! Duh! The boss fights are definitely interesting. I remember one dude who was three times bigger than any other character, and another boss who would run around and you had to chase him throughout the level. Some might argue this isn't a true Contra game (being it was originally titled Arc Hound in Japan and never released), but it's still some fun run 'n gun two player action!



4. Double Dragon II

Before Scott Wolf graced us with his presence in the movie, and the laughably bad cartoon (http://youtube.com/watch?v=mIkxocQoaHA) there was the game. Double Dragon taught me never to trust anyone named Abobo and to watch my back for shadow warriors. My bud and I enjoy taking on the roles of Billy and Jimmy Lee and kicking and punching our way to save Marian. In the first game, you could only trade off with your friend to control the character. But DDII featured both brothers in simultaneous beat down action. This game is especially memorable for all of the traps. There are many numerous AND annoying traps. The one that gave us the most trouble was a level that had a bunch of jumps you had to make in a row. Wow, what an unnecessary hassle. Despite the traps, it's fun to co-op your way through while taking out dopplegangers with Hyper Uppercuts and Whirlwind Kicks!



3. Battletoads

Ah yes, one of the most infamously difficult games for the NES. What can you really say about Battletoads? Rash and Zitz had to rescue fellow toad Pimple and Princess Angelica from one of my favorite NES baddies, the Dark Queen (she's really hot). The road to their rescue was definitely not easy. The game features some crazy difficult levels. The first two aren't bad, but the difficulty ramps up (literally) when you jump on your hover bikes and maneuver past inconveniently placed walls and crevasses. That level gave us the most trouble. It took a couple tries to make the second of the big jumps. Now honestly, this is the one game on the list that we never beat! It was just that hard. Even with Game Genie codes. Still though, with the memorable characters, awesome music,and just plain silliness, Battletoads lives up to the hype.



2. River City Ransom

This is it right here. The ultimate beat 'em up. High school gang kids destroying each other over a kidnapped girlfriend. But if you ask me, Alex and Ryan didn't need a reason to kick some serious butt. Featuring such memorable gangs as the Frat Guys and the Generic Dudes, RCR made you wonder where the teachers were during all this. You basically ran around the city beating up gang leaders until you found out where main baddy Simon was. The game play was simple enough, but the cool part was buying food and books to upgrade your stats and learn new moves. You could grab a Tuna Roll, Cornish Hen, Merv Burger, Roman Shake, or Love Potion, or relax in the sauna. Plus, you could take out the "Infamous Dragon Twins" Randy and Andy. HAHAHAHA!The game continues to have a cult following.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cI1ETfJ_HSM)


BARF!

1. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II The Arcade Game & The Manhattan Project

Yeah, I was a HUGE TMNT fan when I was a kid. Along with Ghostbusters, these were the two franchises that I worshipped. More than Transformers, He-Man, or Thundercats. So when I got my first NES, this was one of the first games I played. Even today, me and my friend burn through this game and its sequel, The Manhattan Project. You picked your favorite terrapin ninja (mine was Leo), and fought your way up to who else but the Shredder. Sure, the gameplay is very simple, but the fact that it was the Turtles keeps us engaged. Waves of Foot Soldiers in all the colors of the rainbow (and then some) would try and stop us, but their attempts were feeble. Even the desperate ninjas with machine guns and lasers were no match. Who knows how many Foot Soldiers were blown up during our twenty year rampage? I could discuss these games in great length and give you all a play-by-play as we wield our NES game pads yet again, but Rocksteady needs to be taught a lesson. Sorry Shredder, but you will never dine on turtle soup!