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Still, it did better than the other films I really enjoyed this year. Most of them, of course, weren’t even up for any awards. And the ones that were had to compete against each other in more of the lesser categories that Hollywood deems appropriate for movies that geeks like me enjoy. Final tally, let’s see… “Iron Man”: jack squat. “Bolt”: jack squat. “Hellboy II”: jack squat. About the only outcome I actually agree with is “WALL-E” taking the award for best animated feature, and then I still simmer with annoyance over all the awards it didn’t win.
I’m honestly not sure why I still watch the Academy Awards, when they’re so obviously targeted at “serious” moviegoers and film snobs, not people like me. I wish – oh, I wish! – that somebody would take these people aside before the voting and explain to them, in small words as you would to a kindergartener, that Hollywood is about more than just drama movies. It’s also about silly dancing robots and exciting car chases and improbable heists and superheroes and space battles and things that go BOOM! and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that! From its earliest days, Hollywood has been the great dream factory, so why is it that the really good dreams – the ones that take you so far away from daily life that two hours after the movie is over you still wish you were there – aren’t considered respectable enough to compete with films so rooted in depressing reality that you couldn’t pry ‘em loose with a backhoe?
Fie on you, Motion Picture Academy of America. Not that I was expecting anything else, but fie on you nonetheless for being predictably snobbish and out of touch with the people who actually like movies. You disappointed me in 1977 by snubbing “Star Wars” for Best Picture, and again in ’81 for “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, and again in ’82 for “E.T.”, and so on just about every year since then. Tell you what: you can keep your dull dramas and your depressing documentaries about social conditions. I’m going to kick back with a bowl of popcorn and a big-budget disaster movie, and I’ll bet you the price of admission that I have one heck of a lot more fun than you do.
Enough griping… let’s talk games!
It was time this week for me to make good on one of my New Year’s resolutions: giving Breakout-style games another chance. It sounds simple enough, I know, but honestly this wasn’t easy for me. My dislike of this genre runs deep, and is based in the fact that brick-busting games generally bore me out of my mind. Now that’s not to say I didn’t play my share of Breakout, Brickout, Arkanoid, and even Pong back in the day, but I abandoned that type of game decades ago in favor of the varieties that require strategy or lots of twitchy action.
So imagine my surprise when I really enjoyed Strike Ball 3. And that’s “enjoyed” as in “played just one more level… and just one more level… and just one more level… until it was 2AM”. Yes, it’s still basically Breakout, but just about everything that I really dreaded about those early brick-breakers has been polished up or modified to make it more exciting and fun.
Point one: physics. The early games had altogether too much of this, and that led to tedium. Once you hit the ball, it would travel in a perfectly predictable course, affected only by bouncing off a brick into a perfectly predictable new trajectory. So long as you kept your paddle on the side of the screen where the ball would eventually fall, you could keep playing for half an hour on one quarter. I lost more often because I stopped paying attention than because I misjudged the ball’s course. Strike Ball 3 doesn’t merely fix this, but it does so without actually breaking the laws of videogame physics. A curved paddle, magnetic repulsion blocks, and powerups that change the properties of the ball all bring a sense of uncertainty to the gameplay, and that translates to actual excitement. Kudos!
Point two: strategy. The early games had far too little of this. Arkanoid was one of the first to add powerups, but mostly that just made the levels even easier: not really a good thing. Strike Ball 3, on the other hand, features levels so packed with bricks of different properties and alignments, moving obstacles, bonus items, and both positive and negative powerups that just bouncing the ball around the screen is no longer an option. You have to think, and plan ahead, and make quick decisions, and that’s just the sort of thing that I crave. All good.
Point three: visual interest. All I can say is that once I hit the level where I was trying to bust up the fortress around a giant robot, I was sold.
Point four: that last annoying brick. If there’s just one thing I have to give recent brick-busting games, including Strike Ball 3, serious credit for, it’s letting me skip that hair-pullingly frustrating bit at the end of a level where you only have one brick left and can’t quiiiiiite hit it. I’d like to award a medal to whichever game designer decided to drop a special powerup around that point in the level which allows you to skip on to the next one. Whoever you are, sir or ma’am, you rock, and that’s no lie.
All in all, I’m both shocked and pleased to say that I love this game, and I’ll be playing it long into the night again tonight, I have no doubt. Let the record show that I’ve probably been giving Breakout-style games an unfair rap for a while now, and I plan to amend that by checking out more of them in the future!
Love deals a winning hand
Around here, we play games every day, but it’s not often that we get the chance to play Cupid! Still, sometimes matchmaking for a game turns into matchmaking for romance, and that’s exactly what happened when Heather and Daniel sat down to a game of Texas Hold’Em together. Now they’re engaged to be married, and the whole wonderful, romantic story is right here if you’re in the mood to say “awwwww”. We’re all so happy for them!
I have to say, this has inspired me to do a small roundup of feel-good, romantic games. We actually have quite a few, but these are some of my favorites:
Plantasia – Not only is this one of my favorite casual games of all time, but the garden-planting gameplay is framed by a sweet, marvelously illustrated story of two people who are perfect for each other. As you restore the gardens of an old estate, you’re also working to build a storybook romance, and that’s just the sort of thing that sets my heart aflutter.
Love Songs Trivia – Nothing is more romantic than the love song that was playing when you first set eyes on somebody special, or slow-danced at the senior prom, or watched the ending of a favorite sappy movie. You know these tunes by heart, and a little trivia might just put you in the mood to go listen to them again!
Mark and Mandi’s Love Story – This spot-the-differences game is really all about celebrating and soothing the differences between the game’s title couple, Mark and Mandi. It’s fun to watch their relationship develop over the course of the game, and some of the scenarios are amusingly “close to home”. The romantic in me likes this game because of its message: a few differences just aren’t that important, and love really can conquer all.
Dream Day Wedding – A hidden-object game with a romantic agenda. In addition to finding all the items necessary for a hearts-and-flowers sort of wedding day, you’ll also be solving a few last-minute crises. In a particularly cute twist, you’ll also determine how the game’s couple, Jenny and Robert, fell in love.
Backgammon – I know what you’re thinking: “Backgammon? How is that romantic?” Well, it is full of some of the nicest people you’ll meet on MSN Games, and the way I figure it, if two people can meet and fall in love playing Texas Hold’Em, they could easily do the same in Backgammon!
It’s certainly worth a try, right?
Women’s Murder Club 2 is here!
It’s time to put your deerstalker hat on and use all those skills you learned watching countless hours of “CSI”: Women’s Murder Club 2 – A Darker Shade of Grey just launched on MSN Games! (And I’m just as excited to download it as everyone else; although I had a chance to play a preview copy, it only included half of the story. I’ve been itching to play the rest for more than two weeks now!) So if you’re a fan of James Patterson’s resourceful heroines, or just of creepy TruTV forensics shows, stop reading this right now and go get that game!
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