But that's a different story entirely (you really don't want to get me started).
My obsession with old Nintendo games has taken me for quite a ride and has greatly influenced the person I am today, to the point where it has alienated me from the casual, contemporary gamer and turned me into this jaded, bitter, angry old man living in a tower of pretension, heaping scorn on the younger generation for their ignorance in the world of gaming, and for their love of games like Modern Warfare: Tokyo Drift, or whatever the hell the "kids" are playing these days.
Hey dumbasses! Activision keeps selling you the same game! Seriously, how many times can you reach prestige ten before you realize no one in the real world gives a shit? Did Activision start including "forget-me-nows" as a bonus for pre-ordering?
Reflecting on my aforementioned pretentiousness and elitism in regards to the world of gaming, I've come to realize I don't really have a leg to stand on. For how much I aggressively parade around like a drunken peacock on bathsalts, vomiting my opinions at whoever is unfortunate enough to be within earshot, I really don't have the experience or credentials to qualify me to do so. I didn't own a NES or SNES when they were "current generation" consoles. My experience with these games was either at friends or family members' houses. I actually didn't own a video game console until the Nintendo 64 was well into its third year of existence. Granted, I (re)discovered the true classic games later in life, but when I look at the catalogue of games that were released for the NES and SNES, it becomes all too clear that I've only played a small fraction of the games available, and beaten an even more miniscule amount of them. I am essentially the video game equivalent of a white suburban hipster who tries to convince modern hip-hop fans that The Chronic really was the pinnacle of hip-hop, even though he wasn't actually "there" when Dr. Dre and Snoop were "creepin' while ya sleepin".
Instead of doing what a normal, decent human being would do upon realizing their worldview was narrow and that their opinions had no definitive supporting evidence, I have decided to seek out the education that will qualify me to shit all over the modern world of gaming/gamers and prove to myself, and any other poor soul that I come into contact with, that I do indeed, know what the hell I'm talking about.
So I decided I was going to play every NES game, in alphabetical order, and write a little something about it to prove that I had done it. Aaaaand, someone already beat me to that, and is doing an excellent job: (http://www.questicle.net/ ) Slightly heartbroken (since NES is my favorite console), I resigned myself to doing the same thing, but for the SNES. And once again (curse you internet!), multiple people started doing the same thing years ago. (http://everygame.wordpress.com/) & (http://everysnes.blogspot.com/ ) But, after thoroughly reading their reviews through teary eyes of disappointment, I realized that they had FAILED. They had given up, they didn't make it to the end, and the torch has now passed to me. Something else I realized upon reading their posts, is that their reviews were based upon a cursory playing and rudimentary understanding. It became very clear to me that they played these games until the mental anguish became too much to bear, and moved onto the next game on the list. And to that, I cry foul! You wouldn't trust a review of a movie from someone who only watched the first twenty minutes would you? I certainly wouldn't, and that's when I came up with the worst/best/worst (non-sexual) idea of my lifetime: I am going to not only play every SNES game, I'm going to beat them, and give them a proper review.
So before I officially start, I think it's important to understand the magnitude of this endeavor. There were 784 official SNES games released in the United States and Europe (not doing the japanese exclusives for so many reasons, but most importanly I don't speak Japanese!). When I apply a little bit of the mathematics I've learned over the years (thanks Donkey Kong Jr!), things start looking pretty overwhelming. Based upon my previous years of gaming, beating a game in a week seems like a pretty reasonable estimate. So at a game a week, and 52 weeks in a year, its pretty obvious at that rate I would beat 52 games a year. With some quick math (784/52 = 15.08) we can see that this would take me 15.08 years!! And that's not including the time it would take to write reviews. I don't think even Marco Polo signed up for a 15 year journey. So it has become very clear to me that I'm going to need to step up my game (haha, puns are funny). I originally thought a more feasible time frame would be 5 years, which puts my goal at beating and reviewing approximately 3 games a week (give or take a couple of "off" weeks for things like Ramadan, Yom Kippur, and Festivus). But even that seems unrealistic considering the sheer volume of RPG's released for the SNES that easily clock in at 30 hours. Therefore, I have decided not to put an official clock on this endeavor, and instead just make it a lifelong goal. Unofficially, I would like to beat every game by December 31st, 2019 at 11:59 pm. 6.5 years sounds reasonable to the point where I will have to work hard to get through all of these games, but I will be able to take time to enjoy the games and live my life as a functioning human being.
As for beating the games, I'm going to do so in the most simplistic of ways. I didn't say I was going to complete them, basically I'm going to beat the final boss and play any necessary bonus stages, and then I will move on. I don't have the time or interest to get 100% completion on any of these games, as my true intent with all of this is to get a good understanding of the games, and write/cry/bitch/gush about them. Also, I may gloss over redundant compilations like "Super Mario All-Stars", and "Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World".
And now, you may be saying to yourself "Dude, that sounds like a terrible idea..." and I will agree with you completely. But you know what, I have a disease, and diseases are pretty goddamn terrible. And this disease is terminal, that's right I have:
SNESticular Cancer!
No comments:
Post a Comment