A return visit by my UK friends led to a rather drunken flurry of gaming on Monday night – the Resident Evil 5 demo, the R-Type Dimensions demo, Ikaruga, Dash of Destruction, and EDF 2017 all got a look in.
My gaming pal, Andy – prior to his backpacking odyssey, he was quite the prolific GS accumulator – was keen to check out Resi 5. I’ve never played any of the series, even the “second best game ever” (according to Edge) Resident Evil 4… “survival horror”, as a genre, doesn’t appeal to me in the least. Mostly because I know I’d have trouble actually watching the screen, such is my scaredy-cat nature (I couldn’t play through the demo of Bioshock, remember?) So it was quite a treat to have a Resi fan accompany me as we co-opped the demo levels.
Our opinions couldn’t have been further apart, either – he loved the graphics, I thought it looked depressingly dry and dusty. He loved the action, I felt hamstrung and helpless. He felt immediately at home, I didn’t have the slightest fucking clue what I was doing – though once I figured out how to knife zombies, I was good. For about ten seconds. Before they ate my brains.
Erm… no. Not buying that one.
R-Type Dimensions will also remain unpurchased; I was never really a fan of it in the arcade (though I recall applying plenty of blood, sweat, and tears to get through the bastard on freeplay during a lock-in at the TimeZone around the corner from my old Uni digs). And whilst the XBLA version certainly looks pretty, and plays faithfully, I can’t deal with the psychological weight of it. Christ, Ikaruga‘s bad enough.
Apart from the abovementioned – and a Valentine’s Day bash through Paradise City with my online chums – nothing else really got played this week… except Majora’s Mask. Which, it must be said, has turned into a mechanical sufferance. The Water Temple (or whatever it’s called) has been conquered, all the fairies therein have been captured, and I step-by-stepped a walkthrough to do it. I’m not proud of that, but the sad truth is that I no longer care; I just want that game off my List soon and forever.