My game sense farted!

Here I am, happily plodding along playing some of the most excellent games I have seen in years. World at War, Left for Dead, Grand Theft Auto IV and the list goes on, then BAM! out comes a 2D platform game for the DS and all the other games get dumped. Castlevenia: Order of Ecclesia has pulled me away from all the high quality sound effects and music, high definition graphics and online multiplayer games I own and it has left me wondering why is this happening to me?

I have been moving along for the last few years appreciating the great and vast improvement in games to the extent that I very rarely go back to the old games for any longer than twenty minutes. Any longer than that and I go back to some of today’s titles.

I have never played any other iteration of Castlevenia so I do not know what it has been like for followers of the series. The graphics and sound are as good as they get on a DS but the game does not utilise the console to its best potential. Basically you play on one screen and view information on the other without making any use of the stylus.

What grabs my attention is the storyline and the RPG element. I knew that I always appreciated role playing games but over the last few years I have spent more time reading game dialogue and getting drawn in more by the stories.

What makes a good game for you?

On top of a good storyline I really appreciate the all round feel of the game. For example, killing someone on stairs does not end with their head on the stair and the body sticking straight out horizontally! When you turn and face one direction the music doesn’t stop! Weather makes a big difference as long as there is no ‘over-the-top’ cheesy lightning strikes.

Small things like this can turn a good game into an excellent game. Attention to detail strikes close to home for me. We see this more and more often like in Assassins Creed when you bump into people or climb buildings they have comments to make, in Killzone 2 you get compliments for good shooting and told to get cover when you stand in the open.

It is a long time since I have sat down and thought about why I like games and I have never really looked into it in any great detail. You should sit down and contemplate why you play games. Is it the game itself or is it more of a social thing for you? Man, I think I am going over the edge with all this to think about and I am going to get my own red ring of death in my brain.