I've loved playing video games since I was a kid. Unfortunately I don't get as much time to play nowadays, so I have to pick and choose what I spend my time playing. Here's what I'm playing lately.
- Metroid: Zero Mission
- I've played this for only a couple hours so far. Already I enjoy it, as it reminds me a lot of the original Metroid. It's not really a "remake" of Metroid, since it's not the same game. The term I've often heard applied to Zero Mission is a "reimagining" of the original, and I think that's appropriate. The game still feels a lot like the original Metroid, although the gameplay is almost exactly like Metroid Fusion. From what I've seen so far, I think I'll be glad I got this game.
- Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
- After several weeks of playing this in my spare time, I finally beat it. It's seriously one of the most fun RPGs I've ever played. The gameplay never gets boring, as you are always learning new moves as Mario and Luigi advance levels. And there are plenty of fun references to previous Nintendo games: the original Super Mario Bros. series, Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, etc. (even Pong, although that's not a Nintendo game, of course). The dialogue is hilarious, too. It's just a lot of fun to play. I highly recommend this game.
- Viewtiful Joe
- I was super excited to get this game, and bought it the first day it was available. I'm currently about 25% through, because I only played it for a few days. The concept of slowing down and speeding up time was pretty cool, and the graphics are very well done. But after the initial "wow", the gameplay seemed to get repetitive, and I just lost interest. The game is fairly hard, even on the easy level. That probably contributed to my loss of interest, since I don't have time to try each level 20 times like I did in high school. Overall, it's an okay game, in my opinion probably overrated. But if you like platform games, you'll probably like this one pretty well.
- Final Fantasy X
- This game is the entire reason I bought a PlayStation 2 about two and a half years ago, and I still haven't played it. I dusted it off a couple weeks ago and played for an hour or two from the beginning. The graphics are great, and the music from Nobuo Uematsu is wonderful as usual. It's since been superseded by Mario & Luigi, but I haven't forgotten about it. I'm a little worried because from everything I heard (and have seen two years ago when my brother-in-law Aaron was playing), the game is a little short on gameplay and long on cutscenes. I haven't played enough to know how much this will bother me, but it might.
