False Oracles

So, after having longed to play the twin Zelda titles Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages, I have finally gotten around to getting them into my grubby little paws. I trawled along amazon for a while, found everything in fairly decent price (for lost classics like that) and bought myself a GBA SP so that I would forevermore be able to play any and all game boy carts I could possibly want. Then I promptly found emulators and ROMs for all of this, so I didn't actually bother buying the games. No good rationale exists for this, but hell I'm not a perfect human being, and it's not like the sale of these games would go to the publishers anymore anyway.

These two games were Capcom's first entry into the Zelda franchise. It certainly seemed like an ambitious idea, producing two very different adventures (time willing it would have been three!), and I always really wanted to play them. They're each sort of like Link's Awakening, in that Link is thrown into a distant, foreign land, and must overcome 8 dungeons to reach the final tower and fix whatever is wrong. Seasons slowly gives Link the power to force an area to adopt one of the four seasons, and Ages features a harp than shifts Link from the present to the past and back.

I started with Oracle of Seasons, and so far I've found the game really compelling. I really haven't spent so much consecutive time absorbed in any game like this in a while. So that's a plus. The new items are well thought out and truly interesting, and even the dungeon naming and themes are inventive and new, certainly for a Zelda title. The color, however, is very bizarre and uninspiring. A separate palette is used for each season, to help differentiate, but this restricts any given screen from truly living up to it's potential. Summer is lively enough and winter I accept as being almost completely white and light blue, but spring just doesn't feel as vibrant as I think it should be. Autumn is particularly egregious, using almost exclusively light brown. I'm sure other cues could have been used to distinguish everything, allowing a little more variety of color. As it is, it feels like an original GB game that's simply being upconverted procedurally into color.

Now as far as the actual mechanic of season-changing goes, I find it quite clever and fun. Snow drifts block access or provide ramps, various way-blocking plants are only active during certain seasons, water levels and currents change, and even the type of enemies change. Areas are tied together by season, and you can only change seasons while standing on a tree stump, so the designers kept a good deal of control with the mechanic and it really can't be exploited. Well played, Capcom.

Anyway, I'm about halfway through the game at the moment, and I will check in later after I've completed it and probably a little ways into Oracle of Ages.

Cover Letters and Stuff

Writing is a simple thing, on the surface. Come up with a topic and just let the words flow. Have a conversation with yourself, or pretend to be explaining something to someone else.

Writing with a purpose, that's something else entirely.

I'm drafting a cover letter for a QA position at a large games company, and I'm having difficulty even starting. I want to make it clear that I'm familiar with their work, and a fan, but I don't want to seem like every other fan that would just LOVE to work for you guys PLEASE? Being professional is certainly of utmost importance, but there must be just the right dash of personality and wit to grab the interviewer's attention. It's striking this balance that's really giving me issues.

At first I thought of remembering my first experience with their games. "Nah, too fan-letter," I said to myself. I wasn't even going to try all-out professionalism, that's certain to bore anyone. There has to be a quick hook. So now I'm struggling with just how exactly I can be strong yet clever in my opening two sentences.

I already have my game plan down for subtly indicating that I'm familiar with their work, which is to work in several oblique references to their next title. So long as that's in there, I believe my fan status will be recognized, but not so forcefully as to sound like a stalker. And by working the references in more like clues, I hope to win points as an intelligent writer. I mean, my ego thinks I can be, so why not?

Ultimately, I probably shouldn't stress about it too much. I'm pretty sure I can at least make it to the interview step. Getting through that, on the other hand, has always been, and will forever be, my weakness.

Where is that old inspiration?

Among boxes and boxes of childhood memories, there is a sketchpad full of crappy knock-off Mega Man villains. Pages and pages of these things. I'm not really sure how I came up with all of them, because I haven't had that strong of a creative impetus for years.

There was a time when I wanted to make video games. Not to design, write, code or create art for video games, just to 'make' them. Clearly I had no idea what went into making a video game, the kind of focus needed, and I came up with all sorts of game jigsaw pieces that didn't quite fit together. There were tiny level designs, multitudes of characters, an attempted novel, even a brief attempt at teaching myself C++. I was all over the place.

Now that I've settled on writing as my gaming 'major', I've looked back at what I've made, what my imagination has spit out in the last several years. Not a whole lot. I still play games just as often, if not more. I still thrown myself into myriad innovative worlds. But none of it has really reignited my creative spark.

Granted, I don't become as wholly absorbed by a game these days as I used to. As a child, I couldn't imagine the idea of playing even two games at once: why would anyone pick up another game before the previous one was done (complete or otherwise)? Now I'm juggling two books and probably six games, and it all makes sense. But perhaps this has spread my imagination too thin, like butter scraped across too much bread. Perhaps it's my own fault for not dedicating myself to one wom- um... game.

Maybe some of the creativity of youth has simply left me. Maybe it's something more personal, pointing at a deeper problem in my life. Or maybe... maybe games have truly lost some of their magic? It has been a generation of consoles since I truly fell in love with a game, and that was a rare thing even then- it used to be a common thing.

My final speculation is this- I am now more tapped in to gaming news and culture than I ever was, and multi-game ADD is getting worse than ever. So many games are coming out, and I hear about almost all of them. From every console, from every genre, there are new announcements every week, new recommendations from my favorite journalists. And it's all so beautiful.

Quite the dilemma.

Hibernation

I am back in it, back the the mindset, working towards an actual writing career. This is the first time in many years that I've felt this amount of direction. Let's see how far it takes me.

So, yet again I mention that I must write here daily, and perhaps transcribe this all to both 1up.com and giantbomb.com. Active writers are the only real writers. Artists ship, to paraphrase Steve Jobs. Engage the mind, activate the brain, just as I try to activate my muscles. Sloth is anathema. Do, work, create, be active, swim, explore, read, actually strive for something. Self motivational drivel, but everyone has to start somewhere, neh?

I have finished my application review of Dragon Age 2 for Blizzard. Now I just need to rewrite my old cover letter, submit that, and wait. My GM friend from inside the frozen walls will put a small tag on my submission, indicating me as a friend of an employee, which skips me forward in line a good bit. Fingers crossed and such.