In Third Person

The Metroid series of games have carved out a weird niche in my memories. I've always felt that the games were really cool and I've always wanted to play them through to completion, but I never do. In many cases, I never get far at all.

When the original came out, I rented it just because I thought the box art was cool. Keep in mind I was probably in Kindergarten at the time I first played it. Back then, I thought that being able to travel left, right, up and down was cool, and the ability to roll up into a ball was neat, but I never got the point of it. I was too young to comprehend how to actually play the game and navigate the world. To me, I ran around and shot monsters until I got bored.

It wasn't till I got older and tried Super Metroid when I finally understood what the game was about. I played through the opening sequence at some event with Super Nintendo systems set up and thought it was awesome. Having world maps also helped me out greatly. I still find it amazing that kids navigated through the entirety of the original Metroid without a map. I've even heard personal stories of people who would draw their own maps on graph paper in order to get through. I only got to play the game for a few minutes at that event, but I really liked what I tried.


I wouldn't buy my first Metroid game until Metroid Prime came out on the Gamecube. The reviews for the game were sky-high. I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to jump into the series at the same time as everyone else. From what I played of it, I thought it was spectacular. I loved how expansive the world was and how air-tight the controls were. I really felt like I was a lone bounty hunter exploring the galaxy. What ultimately killed the game for me though was the same thing that stopped me from playing the first Metroid: navigating the world. Even with the map and the assists, I got to a weird point very late in the game where I had no idea how to actually get to the marker on the map. I would go on to buy the second Metroid Prime game, which I never even opened.

Since then, I have tried to go back to both the original and Super Metroid with no such luck. I still suffer the same problem that I do in every other Metroid game, even with maps and assists. I get lost to the point that I can't play these games anymore. Not to condemn the games, because I know many gamers who have loved and beaten these and other Metroid style games. Maybe I just suck at this style of gameplay that features back-tracking and requires a stronger sense of direction. However, I've beaten both Bioshock and Batman: Arkham Asylum, which do feature Metroid-style elements to it when it comes to navigating the world. Maybe Samus Aran and I just weren't made for each other.

Based on my Google analytics stats, virtually nobody reads this blog. The majority of the hits are from myself, making sure my posts are formatted properly and don't have any spelling mistakes. Every now and then I'll get a few hits from random parts of the world. But for the most part, traffic to this blog is a joke. I admit, I haven't tried very hard to promote it: I infrequently update the In Third Person Twitter feed, which has 0 followers as of this post, and outside of my girlfriend (whom I've kept this blog a secret for about 6 months) nobody I personally know even knows this exists.

With all that said, I love maintaining this blog. I don't write in this blog to get attention, or to engage in deep discussions with others about the medium, or to build a portfolio of work so that I can become a game journalist. I haven't told anybody I know because I don't want them reading this. They wouldn't care and would probably look down on me for it. More than anything, it's a place for me to vent my thoughts about a medium I love, regardless of who wants to read or comment on what I have to say. If no one does, that's fine. It's the act of getting these thoughts out of my head that makes this therapeutic for me in a way.

Ever since I moved away from my original gamer friend when I was 13, places for me to voice my thoughts and feelings about video games have been scarce. While a number of my friends play games, I don't really have anyone to talk to about how beautiful the mechanics are on Super Mario's jump, or how I disagree with what "person X" said on "video game podcast Y". The moment I begin to dabble in more deeper video game discussion is always the moment I weird people out around me. I'm thankful to have a girlfriend that puts up with me talking about video games, but I don't expect her in a million years to care about why I think Fire Emblem is one of the most underrated video game series of all-time. Nor would I want her to care about that, unless she got into that series on her own and loved it as much as I do. I'm totally happy with her being her own person, even if that means we don't like video games the same way.


That still leaves the Internet as a possible place to let it out. More than ever, there are outlets for people to discuss everything related to games. I often frequent other video game blogs and message boards to see what people have to say. However, I have no interest in joining these particular conversations because I don't like participating in message boards. I just like to lurk. I could even sign up for a video game blog on a site like IGN or 1up, but I didn't feel comfortable with that, either.

For me, this has felt like the best solution. I have run blogs in the past, but none of them were formatted to best suit video game discussion. With that experience, I've just gone all-out to say what I want to say about a medium I've had a life-long affair with. Over here, I can say my piece on my own terms. Having eyes on my writing is secondary. Just getting out of my head is what matters most to me. If others enjoy my writing though, you're more than welcome to continue following me as I spill my release some pent-up gaming thoughts I've held in my head for days, if not years.

1993 was a very big year in gaming for me. It was the year I got a Super Nintendo for my birthday and the year I read my first video game magazine. Both of those moments were key in making me the enthusiast I am today, for better or worse. I won't talk about the Super Nintendo experience this time. I wanted to write about that magazine and how it completely changed my media consumption habits.

On my birthday, my best friend at the time gave me a baseball cap and a copy of Gamepro magazine. It had Battletoads on the cover and featured a pull-out Street Fighter II Turbo guide. At the time, I didn't have a copy of any Street Fighter game nor could I even throw a Hadoken, but I poured over that guide for hours thinking about the day when I could actually pull off those sweet combos or implement this strategy into how I played that game. Truth be told, I never really followed through on any third-party Street Fighter knowledge until last year. In any case, reading about how intricate that game could be played opened my eyes to how awesome that game was.

From that point on, video game media became a part of my life. With a few dollars of allowance or birthday money in hand, I would head down to the local convenience store and pick up a video game magazine. For a while, I would just pick up anything. As my tastes refined though, I was all about Electronic Gaming Monthly. Unlike video game media of today, which is essentially a landslide of up-to-the-minute news, previews, reviews and features that come and go within hours, getting that video game magazine once a month was an event. I would often buy snacks to go along with my magazine reading and often go through the magazines together with a friend and discuss what games look hot in previews and what games we would check out based on their review scores.

In a way, video game magazines also helped me make friends and helped improve my ability to read and write. I never really got into novels, but my love of reading stuff in a magazine form has transcended way beyond video games.


Nowadays, I don't read video game magazines anymore. Heck, I stopped reading video game magazines regularly around 1998. I have been getting the majority of my video game media from websites and podcasts ever since. Often times though, I do yearn to sit down with a video game magazine and read through it. Every now and then, I would buy an EGM just for that experience, but the magazine closed down at the beginning of 2009. All the other magazines out there either don't speak to me or are really expensive.

When the magazine does return this year, will it be any good? What will it do to keep someone like me who gets the brunt of their information from the Internet interested? Whatever the case, I am looking forward to the magazine's return.

Before I invested in an XBOX 360, I was starved for core games as a Wii-only owner. I was going through a drought in games to play, and the Wii version of The Godfather was starting to pick up buzz. I had never watched a Godfather movie or played a Grand Theft Auto game before, the promise of being able to point my Wii remote as a gun or beat thugs down with swinging fist motions seemed really cool. Also, when you don't have that many options to choose from, you're more willing to step outside your comfort zone for some satisfaction.

I picked this up on day one, not quite knowing what to expect really. I had read the reviews and seen this trailer, but not having played this style of game before didn't give me any real context to base my own opinions from.

If you haven't played this, or have played the non-Wii versions of the game, you're probably wondering how the controls perform. While they are not perfect, I thought they were very satisfying, especially in combat. I loved the ability to aim the gun with my hand and beating guys down by actually throwing punches did add to the experience. In particular, I liked all the things you could do when you grabbed a guy. Most famously among my high school friends, I grabbed a prostitute in the game and threw her off a balcony. Yeah, that wasn't the most gentlemanly thing of me to do.

At the time, I thought the game was really fun. I can't really speak on how closely the story followed the movie, but there weren't any missions that stood out to me as annoying, boring or bad. I liked the side stuff where you could shake down local store owners to take control away from rival gangs. This process was kind of repetitive, but I enjoyed it enough to shake down every store and bar owner in New York. Having played a number of GTA games since then, I thought The Godfather: Blackhand Edition stacks up fairly well. It's ultimately not as good, but if you're looking for more open-world goodness, it was a good game to check out.

The only glaring flaw I remember clearly about the game were its visuals. Unfortunately, the graphics aren't the greatest, especially when playing on an LCD or plasma TV. One weird thing though is that I found the game to look just fine on a CRTV. Regardless of what TV you have, the art style does not cover up the technical deficiencies put on the system due to the large open-world.

If you're still looking for core games to play on the Wii, I recommend you check out The Godfather: Blackhand Edition. I'm sure you can pick this one up for dirt cheap used.

Due to the varying interests and skill levels, finding games for my girlfriend and I to enjoy on the same level is difficult. Every now and then she'll play one of "my" games and I'll play "her" games, but I can only really think of one video game series that we can really call "ours". That series, is Boom Blox for the Wii.

If you're not familiar with the critically acclaimed and lukewarm selling Boom Blox series of games, I'll give you a very quick rundown of what it's about. Boom Blox has a number of different game types, all of which revolve around interacting with blocks. This includes throwing baseballs at a stack of blocks, skillfully removing blocks Jenga style, hitting blocks into multipliers and more. Sure, that description sounds really lame and even watching videos of the game doesn't sell the game that well. But when you get that Wii remote in your hand and you knock down a giant stack of blocks to the chagrin of your opponent(s), you'll get it.

Your girlfriend will too. Well, at least mine did. And a few other girls I know with boyfriends got it as well. Heck, pretty much everyone I've put Boom Blox in front of has loved it. It's a shame that Boom Blox has not caught on with the masses, because it's awesome for everyone. But I'm not here to talk about everyone. This post is just about Steff and I.


What makes this game universally appealing is the gameplay. It is extremely easy for anybody to figure out almost instantly, but tricky to master. Most of the game modes also do not require twitch reflexes, which takes out another layer of difficulty. Where it lacks in twitch gameplay it makes up for in strategy. During that moment when you've figured out the absolute best way to handle your situation and the reward is watching a hundred blocks fly off into oblivion, it just feels good.

As a competitive multiplayer game, both Boom Blox games are a blast to play. They're almost as easy as Wii Sports in terms of universal pick-up-and-play appeal with a steeper learning curve for anyone looking to take it to the next level. My girlfriend and I often duel in Boom Blox and the competition is always heated. Unfortunately for me, she wins more than I do. Even as a single player game though, it can be fun to work out levels together. One person can be in charge with the Wii remote and together you can form a plan of action.

Whether we're battling to the death for Boom Blox champion supremacy or working together to solve crazy block puzzles, the Boom Blox series of games are awesome to play together.

I can't go anywhere without my iPod Touch. As my all-in-one mini computer, I use it for everything from media consumption, note-taking and games. While I was swept up in Peggle fever a few months back, one game has remained a staple in my iPod Touch game library. That game is Drop 7. It's by no measure a new game. I bought the game months before I started this blog, and even then it wasn't new. However, I have consistently gone back to this game and play it almost daily. It's a great and simple game that is perfect to play on the go.

If you haven't tried it yet (you have no reason not to, because there's a free demo available), the game is sort of like a mix between Tetris and Sudoku, though that's not entirely accurate either. I have a very hard time articulating how to actually play this game, but within two plays, it just clicked for me. From then on, I was hooked on dropping my numbered tiles into the well to make other blocks disappear. It has a very similar appeal to Tetris in a way. The big difference, besides the matching of numbers and column/row lengths, is that you have complete control over when you drop your pieces. This makes the game much easier to jump into or jump out of, because you can play it at your own pace.

There are three modes of play: Normal, Hardcore and Sequence. I played normal for a while, but got good to the point where a game would last me 45 minutes to an hour. Now, I play almost exclusively Hardcore, which can be over and done with in five-minutes or less. Sequence is a mode I never really got into, because it's been the same puzzle for me every time.

Not much else to say other than that. Drop 7 is a great puzzle game that has such a solid gameplay concept around it that it could last you forever. There is a free demo on iTunes for you to try out as well.