A Link to the Past and Future

As I sit and write this morning, the enormity of the date reverberates with me. September, and Pennsylvania autumn and winter, are nearly upon us. Thankfully, this very morning, two lovely gentleman from Titan Heating and Air are here to install our new furnace and air conditioner!

Last winter, we paid out the nose for our heating costs to the tune of $350+ every month! This winter, hopefully, we'll be able to keep those spiraling costs under control. There have been few hiccups so far and although it's still only 8:05a as I write this, hopefully that will be the case throughout the day.

Work was decent this week. I didn't see particularly many clients, and even the pantry was slower than usual. Despite this, I felt fairly bored and a little discouraged with the work. I can't exactly explain it, but I just chalk it up to an instance of not loving my job, as I normally do.

I did, however, get a chance to testify on the proposed changes to the state LIHEAP program. LIHEAP, in brief, is an enormous and nationwide energy assistance grant intended to help pay delinquent and high heating and electricity costs. Last year, it was open for nearly half the year and the proposal is to limit its availability to just three months. After reading my testimony, which had been heavily proofread and edited, I received the feedback that I was "smooth, like good whiskey," which I greatly enjoyed.

Honestly, there's not too much to update on this morning. As the brave souls continue their work downstairs, I'm likely to watch some mindless television or game. It's not a glorious way to end the summer before school starts next Tuesday, but it's fitting.

This past week, like most of the summer, has been extraordinarily slow. Although some clients are trickling through the doors, it is nothing like the flood of service that I saw in my first year here at Brashear. I've completed all of the major projects I've been working on, including the enormous pantry roster, and the clients that I've been working with (at least those that I can contact) seem to be stable and thriving in work or have been connected to appropriate resources. So it's been a rather nice luxury to be able to ease into a day, experience some quiet at work and to quickly fulfill the limited responsibilities placed upon me. Summer may be rising in the ranks of my favorite seasons.

Taking advantage of my leisure time (my official summer lasts another week until school begins again), I've done some very light yard work, beaten a couple of DS games ("Mario & Luigi", "Dragon Quest Heroes: Rocket Slime"), and most importantly, spent some quality time with Chavonne. Homebodies that we are, we haven't spent as much time exploring Pittsburgh as we'd like, but I think that should soon change. This weekend, I'm planning to have Kairi (a.k.a. "Unknown to Science") groomed for the first time in her life! It should be worth quite a few laughs. Additionally, I'm planning on completing something on my list of New Year's resolutions and purchasing a high-quality camera and taking some obnoxiously artistic pictures! I haven't so much done anything to really deserve this, but I really want to and I think that's good enough for the moment. I've become extremely lax in posting pictures online (I still have pictures from our last vacation to Virginia), and I'd like to get back into it.

Finally, I believe we're going ahead and replacing our furnace and adding central cooling to our house, here at the tail-end of summer. The prospect of paying more $330+ heating bills again is a little too much to handle; if this major upgrade saves us roughly a third of our monthly bills and will dramatically increase the value of our home and decrease its carbon footprint (our current furnace is older than Chavonne and I combined)! Home ownership has many rewards, but also more than a few responsibilities but replacing this antique of a furnace is pretty much a no-brainer.

Well, that's pretty much it for the week. Hopefully this weekend will be fun and productive. I can't wait to see what new thing today has in store!

This past Thursday, Chavonne and I attended our first NFL game with Raji and Lara; Chavonne won four preseason tickets versus the Arizona Cardinals through a raffle at the Brashear Association's Christmas in July fundraiser, and when we first realized we (she) won, we were ecstatic.

The time before the game was quite adventurous, as we spent about forty-five minutes in traffic driving the stretch of a mile to gain access to the stadium. We saw throngs of people wearing jerseys celebrating the exploits of Hines Ward, Ben Roethlisberger, James Harrison, and others. We even saw a single brave soul wearing a Cardinals jersey!

Parking was reasonably expensive (thirty dollars for five hours), although we met a brusque and entertaining attendant justifiably critical of my ability to parallel park. After commenting on the rather spartan appearance of the newly opened Rivers Casino, we set out on the short walk to the stadium.

The security check, the sloping walk up the ramps, and the concession lines ($10.25 for a minuscule pizza and a medium soda) couldn't dampen the contagious enthusiasm that people have for the Steelers in this town. To first step out into the stadium proper is akin to entering a vast church. From our seats, we could see the Allegheny river, the scoreboard, dozens of cameras recording the game, and the hazy skyline of Pittsburgh.

Chavonne promptly began to freak out and all of us experienced an almost overwhelming sense of awe. Watching a game in person is a truly different experience from a game at home. Without commentary, NFL games are far quieter and more difficult to follow. Sitting in the stadium is an oddly intimate experience, where you can maintain a private conversation without too much difficulty and at the same time, fans share stats about the players, opinions about the coaching, and even opinion on world and domestic events. It's where, in fact, I first learned the hated Eagles signed the detestable Michael Vick to a contract.

Pittsburgh fandom is a unique thing unto itself. The game was an opportunity to scrutinize the running game and celebrate the recent world championship of the Steelers, but it also served an opportunity for families to bond (one father behind me taught the nuances of scoring and decision making on fourth down to a child unfamiliar with the game), and a way to invest real emotional currency into a shared symbol meaningful to generations of people.

Almost like a church service, this game was an opportunity to join a wave of emotion be it the frustration of an overthrown pass or the jubilation of a vicious sack. As technology and adult responsibilities fragment the time we're able to spend with our loved ones, it was a release to spend a few hours getting to know old friends, drawing closer to the love of my life, and chastising overpaid yet immensely talented athletes.

Hopefully my next NFL game I can see Tony Romo drag the Cowboys from their rut.

Digital masterpieces, these are the best games I've ever played.

10. Super Metroid - Exploring a planet hiding innumerable secrets beneath its surface, Super Metroid is a claustrophobic and haunting experience where the player nearly always feels outmatched and outnumbered. Weaponry is acquired gradually, expanding one's ability to explore and exterminate slowly. The game's acclaimed map system charts player progress as they visit the organically cohesive environments, accompanied by nothing but the minimalist, muted yet pulse-pounding score. Like the thrilling escape, this game will stay in your memory forever.

9. Kingdom Hearts - KH's sometimes incoherent story deals in intense and adult themes of abandonment, maturation, and relationships. Unlike a majority of the games on this list, it stands out not because of it's sweeping orchestral soundtrack, well developed battle system, inspired crossover between the Final Fantasy and Disney universes, or its lush and beautiful graphics. Instead, one is expected to identify with Sora as he grows from a modest boy to an accomplished hero and learns a few things about the adult world in the process.

8. EarthBound - Truth be told, EarthBound isn't the best game on this list by a long shot. Its turn-based battle system was archaic even by the standards of its time and its graphics, while charming, are unsophisticated and reminiscent of a child's art. However, EarthBound is an example of a game becoming something more than the sum of its parts. It features catchy and stirring musical themes and again features a boy aspiring to become someone more than his upbringing allows; the protagonist Ness develops lasting relationships with a variety of complex characters, each with their own crosses to bear. With its fourth-wall breaking humor, its manipulation of genre stereotypes (common weapons are yo-yos, baseball bats, and the like) and surprisingly epic scale, EarthBound is the dark horse of the list.

7. Super Mario Galaxy - Galaxy finally evolves the Mario series and the platformer in general with inventive and stunning level design that twists, inverts, and rotates the player and conventions in general. Utilizing gravity as the central theme, Galaxy tasks players with exploring dozens of planets, asteroids, and comets in a quest to collect stars once again. Light on combat, Galaxy is robustly designed and will test players' intuition and intelligence yet is so well implemented that never once do you feel cheated. Featuring a surprisingly mature storyline, it stands as the finest game available for the Nintendo Wii, showcasing what attention to design and presentation can create.

6. Final Fantasy VII - What more can be written about FFVII? It ushered in an era of cinematic scale and depth in RPGs, for better worse; it featured one of the most complex and sophisticated character evolution schemes yet seen on a console system, innovated the way graphics and music are integrated into games and gave us one of the most malevolent villains in series history. Playing FFVII is an investment in time and might very well leave you with many questions regarding its overwrought storyline and its imbalanced character development, but witness the fate of Aeris and see if you don't remember this game forever.

5. Secret of Mana - SoM's defining feature is its score. Although the graphics were (and remain) beautiful, it simply can't stand up against the soundtrack. No game I've ever played before or since has balanced the light natural themes of woodwinds and strings with the violent percussion and force of most RPGs. It helps to ingratiate the game into the player's consciousness through its light-hearted and reverent themes early in the game and pulls the rug out from underneath them later on as the tone and story becomes more urgent and the stakes are raised. It single-handedly retrieves the game from the broadly drawn characters and fun, though simple multiplayer-enabled combat.

4. Final Fantasy X - I only played this game last year for the first time and I was almost angry at myself that I had denied myself myself this joy for so long. FFX upends every convention in the series: the bombastic brass instruments are exchanged for flowing woodwinds that lighten the tone of the game and flow like the water that thematically resonates throughout the game; the battle system requires understanding of each character's specialized abilities (Wakka is almost required to attack lithe flying creatures while Auron can pierce even the most well-armored enemies); the presentation of the series, and gaming in general found a new watershed in FFX, whose characters spoke extensively and who appeared almost identically to living people. In every respect, FFX is a journey that transforms both the characters and the player.

3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past - I've never played and beaten another game more than this one, which absolutely perfected the Zelda formula. ALttP innovated the series by adding several series mainstays, including the Master Sword and the hookshot, and continued the tradition of excellent level design with their complex yet logically designed dungeons. In addition, the addition of a dark world, similar and distinct from the light world, expanded the design and packed in more enemies, more secrets to uncover, and the most dungeons found in a single game. Even the vaunted Ocarina of Time doesn't match the level design, the cohesion, nor the sheer joy of A Link to the Past.

2. Final Fantasy VI - FFVI features the largest cast in the series, yet nearly every character is provided a backstory, a cross to bear, and a moment of redemption. Each distinct character possesses unique abilities in battle based on the famed Job system and characters can be further individuated through judicious usage of Espers, magical familiars that give stat bonuses. Released in 1994, FFVI set a new standard for graphical and audio presentation and the quality of the soundtrack in particular stands over time. Perhaps the last of the traditional Final Fantasy series, FFVI is not to be missed, especially to bear witness to the most deranged and memorable villain SquareEnix has yet produced.

1. Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King - DQVIII is truly a living, breathing world on a disc. Its immense and sprawling world contains hundreds of hours of gameplay and truly reproduces a sense of awe to the player. The first time you step to the top of a hill and look down across flatlands, the first visit to the ruined Trodain castle, the first time you learn how Yangus and your hero meet. Gaming isn't about well-executed battles or crystal clear graphics that blur the lines between fantasy or reality. They're about memories, like the way you felt dying after a grueling battle, or when you first understood the scale of the plot. DQVIII is full of beautiful, understated, and subtle moments that will stay with the player for as long as they love gaming.

"Mario and Luigi" takes many of the elements that made its predecessor a surprise hit and expands on them with more areas to explore, more heroes to control, but loses much of the charm and pleasure in the process.

Presentation and Gameplay

"Mario and Luigi" starts with Princess Peach traveling through time to visit the Mushroom Kingdom of the past and, predictably, being abducted. Instead of Bowser, however, a new threat arises from the villainous Shroob aliens, who are attempting to take over the world. Mario and Luigi are joined by their infant counterparts. Like "Superstar Saga," the face buttons of the DS control each individual player and the unique team-up moves help the player access new areas and combine strengths in battle. Enemies, which can be counterattacked and avoided through well-timed button strikes, will often fly to the upper screen of the DS during their attacks and must be carefully scrutinized.

Surprisingly, the DS iteration looks only slightly cleaner and more polished than the GBA version and with a single (spoiler-ish) exception, doesn't utilize the technology of the DS at all. More disappointing, the storyline, which relies heavily on time-travel, doesn't allow the player to explore the past and present versions of any of the areas in the game, except the main castle which serves as a hub world; the opportunity lost to see past and present versions of notable Nintendo characters or to explore transformed areas hangs over the proceedings.

Music and Graphics


A rarity, the music in "Mario and Luigi," written by the legendary Koji Kondo, is absolutely forgettable. Even now, twelve hours after putting the game to bed, I can't remember a single theme but I can readily recall several from "Superstar Saga." While playing, no single theme stood out as being incongruent or dissonant with the environments, but to proclaim a Kondo soundtrack as being forgettable is a rather high insult. Craig Harris of IGN wrote that "Mario and Luigi intentionally speak gibberish, but it works well with the story. The game's soundtrack fits the Marioesque theme with original pieces and remixed classics." Although that's all true, it again merely echoes the previous games in the series and relies more than typical on nostalgia.

Like the music, the graphics, as noted above, don't do anything to expand on the horsepower of the GBA iteration, content to simply polish a few rough edges and import much of the sprite design and palatte of the original. The failure to incorporate any of the technological prowress of the DS feels like another missed opportunity.

Conclusions

Expanding a valued property such as the "Mario and Luigi" series on Nintendo DS that historically incorporates ingenious combination attacks and light RPG trappings was, and is, a no-brainer. Although even the worst Nintendo games are often light-years ahead of the competition, "Partners in Time" doesn't do quite enough to expand on the existing formula to make it a must-play although it's a cute, and enjoyable weekend for anyone looking for a good game.