It has been well over a month since my last Whatcha Playing here at 61 Frames Per Second. The vicious truth of the matter is that I haven’t been playing that much since the beginning of July. The summer will do that to you. When the weather is as nice as its been here in the northeastern United States (mild, sunny as hell, great thunderstorms), its hard to devote eight hours of a Saturday to grinding RPG characters, engaging in manic shoot-outs, or even just taking in some classics (especially if your apartment isn’t air conditioned.) Last Thursday, though, I finally downloaded Bionic Commando Rearmed, a game I may have mentioned anticipating. Those first delicious minutes I spent grappling around the vibrant world GRIN created signaled one undeniable fact: come the weekend, it was time to play some freaking videogames.
But first I had to clean house. Twice a year, I take a look at my game library and growing collection of consoles and peripherals to take stock of what needs to stay, what can be tossed, and what needs to be reorganized. The process is cathartic. Old games in dire need of revisiting reclaim your attention, it’s determined what unbeaten titles need finishing, and old consoles end up reconnected to the TV for the first time in ages.
Cleaning house also reveals just what your predilections are. By the time I’d finished, the library was a bit lighter, and I had a nice smorgasbord put together for Saturday and Sunday. The Playstation 3 was going to get put through its paces with Bionic Commando, PixelJunk Eden, and Lair, the 360 would get love from Too Human and Braid, and the freshly reconnected Gamecube would play host to Metroid Fusion and a little Ninja Five-O.
What did I find out? Well, clearly, I have some kind of grappling hook obsession I need to work out. It also looks like my absence from playing games subconsciously drove me to get back to my platforming roots. I never did fire up Lair and played only a smattering of Too Human (more on those beasts later this week.) The craving for two-dimensions and precision jumps was undeniable. But it occurred to me that the games I was playing, Braid, Eden, and Bionic Commando, aren’t just relics of yesteryear but brand new games, full on fresh ideas. Seems developers broadly are cleaning house themselves these days and rediscovering just what works again.
Summer is in the home stretch now and fall’s bringing cool weather and games to match; the cutting edge of current technology and design will be our hands. A few months back, I felt rabid for the future and the evolution of three-dimensional, narrative driven design. But now that I’m finally playing on the regular again, I’m wondering just what it is I’ll be craving when the fall’s blockbusters arrive. Will I want the meaty story, the deep 3D space? Or will I just want to run and jump?
More Whatcha Playing:
Whatcha Playing: The New Adventures of the Nintendo DS
Whatcha Playing: Fallout (Metaphorically Speaking)
Whatcha' (Wish You Were) Playing: How Does Your Garden Grow?
Watcha Playing: Loving/Hating Mario Kart Wii
Whatcha Playing: How Many Buttons Do I Gotta Push?
Whatcha Playing: Fire Emblem is Pretty Hard
Whatcha Playing: Keeping the Beat, Drum Master Style
Whatcha Playing: A Little Singin’, a Little Dancin’
Whatcha Playing: Another Slice of Cake
Whatcha Playing: BS Zelda
Whatcha Playing: With a Little Help From My Friends