Today is one of those milestone, red-letter days in the video game industry, a day that millions of gamers across the country have been eagerly anticipating. Stores opened at midnight and people flocked in and got their copies of this omega-blistering-hot game, rushed home, tore off the shrink wrap and started playing the heck out of it, work, school or other non-game-playing enterprises be damned.

That’s right: Today marked the official release of Konami’s Pop ‘n Music for the Wii. It’s all the fun of all those versions you’ve imported from Japan through the years, except without the colorful nine-button controller and with (very likely really dubious) waggle control support! LET ME AT IT.

… oh, yeah, and there’s also some bang-bang-pow-pow military tactical shooter, too. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, I believe it’s called. It’s a game that Kanye West would interrupt someone else’s awards ceremony speech to proclaim the biggest video game release of all time, likely to supersede in sales Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, Madden NFL 10, Guitar Hero, Band Hero, DJ Hero, hero sandwiches, Rock Band, Beatles Rock Band, Lego Rock Band, and, of course, the entire Mario, Zelda, Imagine and Insert Plural Form of Proper Noun Here Except Stick a “Z” Instead of an “S” at the End (see: Dogz, Catz, Petz, Marmasetz, et.al.) series … combined. (That is, of course, until video game retailers begin pushing preorders for the next big thing, which should be starting riiiiiiiiight about … now.)

Wake me up when it’s over, please. I’ll be playing Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box in the meantime.

Not to say that I’m immune from the marketing hype machine. I picked up my Day One copies of Tekken 6, Soulcalibur 4, Street Fighter IV and Katamari Forever, to name a few recent examples, like a good little shopper drone. And I can understand to a certain extent the appeal of Modern Warfare 2. It’s just … another first-person multiplayer shooter? Why? Didn’t we just go through this a few months ago with ODST? I stopped by a store a few days ago to look for a copy of Tekken 5 ($9.99 on sale that week, yay), and I counted several bazillion used copies of ODST. Several bazillion! And I fully expect the same avalanche of used Modern Warfare 2 games to appear in a few months.

So yeah, I can wait. Never was a big fan of online multiplayer — you’re reading a blog written by a guy who grew up with nice single-player games like Pac-Man, Q*Bert, Galaga, all those fun games that you see crammed onto compilation discs now for $20, and I’d much rather not deal with college-age students acting like 6-year-olds as they pwn clueless n00bs, kthxbye. Then again, I’m not particularly fond of first-person shooters in general … only ones I’ve enjoyed in recent memory are those in the Halo series, and that’s because it allowed me to pull off the following strategy:

• Advance a few inches.
• Fiddle with controls a lot. Carefully aim in general direction of enemy.
• Fire several dozen shots. (One or two may actually hit its intended target.)
• Immediately get riddled with enemy gunfire.
• RUN AWAY RUN AWAY RUN AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAY
• Allow life bar to refill.
• Repeat.

… and all of this is on the “rookie” setting, too. (I told you I’m really bad at this sort of thing.) The Halo series was better for me than other series because of that auto-life-bar refill … other series employ the accessory commonly known as “the med pack,” which basically meant I’d get riddled with enemy gunfire while looking for something that may refill my life bar halfway (only to see it emptied out again a few seconds later). Playing games: fun. Dying several zillion times in the first level: Not fun.

So have fun on your missions today, virtual soldiers. I’ll be over here figuring out the longest path for an ant to get to his colony, and other insanely aggravating puzzles like that.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 10th, 2009 at 4:30 am and is filed under Jason S. Yadao, video games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.