My friend Jake asked me to elaborate on why I didn't like the later Megaman X games. I said the music got lame, the gameplay got slow and unexciting, the characters bland and boring.
There is one more reason, though.
X1 and X2 were great. X3 was good. X4 was a chore.
By the time I started playing X5, they were doing what Egoraptor talks about in his Sequelitis video on game design and Megaman X.
Here, go watch his video. It's amazing. If you don't have 20 minutes, skip to 1:45.
Megaman X5 falls into that trap and it started giving me dumb messages and interrupting gameplay to give explanations that were not necessary. That was the sign that told me I had to stop. It's sad that a series can go from being the epitome of awesome to being total shit.
Megaman X5 is stupid! I'm moving on! Maybe later I'll come back to it, but for now, there are greener pastures and more entertaining games I can be playing. For instance, Metal Gear Solid, which is coming next.
At the risk of sounding like I’m repeating myself, I want to talk a little bit more about this Metroid Prime Trilogy business.
Only not really.
I’m a teacher and the subject of choice interests me profoundly. We make choices. The teaching side comes down to conveying to students that choices come with consequences, but that’s not what I want to talk about today.
I was thinking a lot about why I felt so bad about bidding on a copy of Metroid Prime Trilogy. It’s not like I don’t have the money for it. Even my own rules allow me to purchase a new game for my collection, provided that I’ve beaten an old game. Well, I’ve beaten around 20 games so far, and I’ve certainly haven’t bought anywhere near 20 games since I started the challenge.
Furthermore, on the money subject, I wouldn’t even have to spend real money or use my credit card, since I have paypal balance for eBay, and gift card balance for amazon. I could get it through either of those channels and it would come out, essentially, to be free.
Enter Barry Schwartz. You should watch this TED talk of his. It’s only 20 minutes. Go ahead. I’ll wait.
I’ve often wondered why it was that going to the grocery store was so hateful to me. I just want some rice. I don’t need 30 kinds of it. There are few things I dislike more than going clothes shopping. In the few jobs I’ve had where I could have healthcare and 401k’s, the prospect of having to wade through pages and pages of choices almost froze me. Now I know why. There is too much choice.
I now think I know why I was feeling so crummy about Metroid Prime Trilogy. It’s not that I was breaking a rule. It’s not that the game isn’t worth it. It is. Metroid Prime Trilogy is a good game, it’s a solid purchase. It’s three games in one, with good visuals and nice controls. It’s hours and hours of entertainment. Each of those games came out at $50 a piece originally, and even at $100, Metroid Prime Trilogy is a bargain. So why was I so relieved when I was outbid? I believe it was what Barry Schwartz calls an opportunity cost. It’s the fact that by making the choice to spend $100 bucks on a game, I see the missed opportunity of all the other things that I can’t spend my money on. And that makes me feel like crap, even though it’s a good purchase.
I’m in no hurry, but I believe I will get this game someday. I just gotta remember that I want it and I’m allowed to have it and it’s not a bad idea to have it.
I just finished Megaman X4, which means I'm really close to beating all the games in Megaman X Collection.
I must say that Megaman X4 was not very impressive. The final boss was hard, harder than any other boss in the game, but it was not enjoyable. This series started to go downhill after the first game, and X4 just goes on to further confirm that.
You can play this game as either Megaman or Zero, but I don't think I'll be spending a lot of time playing as Zero. I've seen the credits and I want to move on to the next game. The main reason I don't want to play as Zero is not because Zero isn't cool. Zero is very cool! It's just that it strikes me as though the game with Zero will be much harder without being much more enjoyable. I'm not down with that.
So I'll leave it like that. Maybe later I'll come back to play it as Zero. This blog will still be around then and these words will remind me to try it out.
I suspect this post is only tangentially related to my mission. Last week I posted Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 on eBay and they sold for a combined total of $21.00. I don't get a lot of satisfaction from this number. In fact, it just goes to prove further my original point about the enjoyment I would get from playing them versus the enjoyment I'd get from reselling them
I've started to put in bids on Metroid prime trilogy for the Wii eBay. I'm not being very aggressive and I don't expect that will win an auction anytime soon, but it's ok cause I'm not in sny real hurry (nor in any real nee of more games.)
The truth is that my wireless gamecube controllers, my Wavebirds, are acting strangely, and I couldn't really picture myself playing Metroid Prime 2 on a wavebird. I'd much rather play it with a Wii remote on Trilogy.
If I get Trilogy, it'll have its place on the list. If I don't, I'll look for it later, once I've finished my mission.
This game is pretty neat. There are six games in it and you can unlock a seventh.
So far I've beaten the first two games and I'm currently about to finish Megaman X3. I can't say much about the other three, but the first three are pretty solid games and still hold up well.
These games really take me back to high school and college. I played X through X3 back then, even though I never personally owned a Super Nintendo. I had to do all sorts of things, from going play at friends' houses to trading my N64 for a SNES with my friend Lucia's brother. There was a lot of juggling involved in playing these games but they were totally worth it.
I feel like the games started losing quality right after the first one, but that doesn't mean they're bad. By the time X3 rolled around, the music was pretty uninspired.
