Zephyrus of the Anemoi

I beg of you Lin– err… I mean, Jazeta, save the princess!

And now, on to mediocrity!

I love The Legend of Zelda. I always have. The dungeon-crawling, the treasure-hunting, the monster-slaying, the whistle-blowing, and oh-my-goodness the ever so original and incredible music of these games. I honestly feel that Zelda will influence my emotions positively until the day I die. It’s my favorite game series of all time, and I will likely devote an entire saga of posts to it one day. Until that time, however, I shall present you with something far less interesting more relevant.

Neutopia is, quite simply, The Legend of Zelda. There’s really no better way to describe it. Follow the links above and you’ll quickly see the similarities. Most of the game play elements that made Zelda so unique from the rest of the gaming world at the time of its inception are brought to the TurboGrafx with updated graphics.

The sad thing is, that seems to be the only improvement over Zelda. Don’t get me wrong, the game is fun. Slay monsters, find stuff, rescue things, whatever… But it’s overly simplified when compared to the original Zelda for the NES. For example, no less than 5 minutes into the game you have already found bombs and medicine for your character. And, in 10 minutes, you’ve probably already found the fire wand, which allows you to burn down trees to find hidden stairways into all sorts of places (okay, maybe not all sorts of places, cause they all look about the same, and usually they’re just full of people telling you stuff that a 5-year old probably already figured out about the game).

But it almost works. Almost.

Anyone that is over the age of 10 and has played any of the other Zelda titles, particularly the original or A Link to the Past, is going to find the game beneath them. I’ve been using the game as little more than a pastime, once I realized how simple it is. But, at the same time, it’s easy to pick up and play for a short while, because it rarely takes more than an hour to accomplish a significant goal in the game (i.e. finding one of 8 medallions so you can rescue the princess).

So, why buy it?

Well, if you are a Zelda fan, and you want something to tide you over until the next 2-D top-down release, it’s not a bad way to keep yourself occupied. And there are some plus sides to the game for certain types of players. For example, if you don’t care overmuch for the more puzzle-y side of Zelda titles, you don’t need to worry. It becomes pretty obvious early in the game where to bomb for secret doors, and the fire wand can be used again and again to burn away bushes (and for some reason, rocks) to find hidden stairs. The most complicated puzzle I’ve encountered so far is what to do with the rest of my day after I finish the game (it appears to be fairly short, ‘though I’m only a little less than halfway through the levels, and they may get significantly longer in the second half).

Regardless, if you can’t play Zelda, play a Zelda-clone. Just don’t tell anyone that you think it’s better than Zelda. It’s likely to get you mugged.

(Originally posted October 2, 2007)

I meant to have photos of the rally up by now, but as far back as I was, the pictures I got with my phone and camera weren’t so hot. A gentleman standing next to me had a much nicer camera and said he’d e-mail me the photos. Once I get them, I’ll post them up here. For now, I’ve got a few from my phone I can share and later tonight, my camera should be charged and I can look through to see what I’ve got on it.

I’d never been to a rally before, so this was a new experience for me. However, this was definitely the largest political rally in Kansas City in a long time, if not ever. St. Louis had 100,000 people show up in the morning and 75,000 were at Liberty Memorial in KC. Now some pointed out that the speech he gave is the same speech he’s been giving in all the battleground states, but with some slight variations (this was in response to my recording as much of the speech as I could). That may be, but he did an incredible job of explaining any doubts John McCain may have raised during the final debate a few days before. My wife was even moved to tears by his speech, and I have to admit that I choked up once or twice myself.

Perhaps the reason that Obama’s campaign has moved me so much to voice my opinion and express myself politically is that for the first time as an adult, I’ve been given the opportunity to choose a candidate for President that made me feel proud to be an American. Not since I was a little kid, singing anthems and saying pledges have I ever felt the way I do now, hearing him speak with such conviction about positive changes and making America a place the world can respect again. I hope that there are enough people out there that hear the same message that I do and are willing to step up and fight vote for what they believe.

I absolutely loved this article! As someone who (semi-)actively participated in the deciphering of the Marathon Story, and a veteran of the Great Potatoanus War (a rather entertaining joke between friends on the alt.games.marathon newsgroup), it reminded me that I was a part of something so large that it took more than a decade to play out. And, although I was a member of the “team” that felt bitter at Bungie’s eventual sale to Microsoft, I’ve continued to have faith in the one game company that could tell a story so involved, so detailed, and so riddled with symbolism and historical, mythological, theological, & literary references that it has yet to be met with any competition. Even their own “Halo” has been unable to compete depth-wise (although, that is in no small part due to the fact that to tell such a story through cinematic and audio commentary would be virtually impossible).

Perhaps it is a shame that technology has advanced to the point wherein NOT having to read has actually had an inverse effect on the effectiveness of storytelling. I cannot wait to see where Bungie will take us when they finish the story of “Halo” and move on to their next big thing. My one hope is that those that made Bungie’s “Marathon” so incredible (Alexander “The Man” Seropian, and Jason Jones) will one day work together again and bring us the final chapter in great storytelling through a medium oft-times too focused on twitch-action and raw horsepower to remember that it is the stories that bring us back for more.

(Originally posted May 18, 2006)