Your Own Personal Jarvis, a.k.a. 100 Days of Happy #6

[brightly_lit]

I really love to play video games. Some people consider them a waste of time; I consider them an interactive art form. Plus, I'm really into technology.

There's this super-fun tower defense game I've been playing lately called Defense Grid, in which you're fighting evil aliens with the help of your Jarvis-esque computer buddy, who used to be human and had his consciousness downloaded into a computer. You learn more of his tragic story as the game goes on (the voice acting is wonderful), and it really draws you in emotionally. But the game is also fucking hard, especially this last level I'm stuck on now. I'm caught between my tenacious refusal to stop trying and the feeling that it would be nice to succeed at something for once. (Here is the diagram I had to make to try to beat this f^&*ing level:)



But the expansion packs are even harder, and there's no more Jarvis story in them, which seriously kills it by about 50% for me. :-( I mean, I like a good tower defense game, a lot, but a story makes a big difference. And this also counts for my 100 Days of Happy Day #6!

Another good tower defense game is Toy Defense. Toy Defense is a war game based on technology of the early 20th century, in which you ... basically kill scores of enemy soldiers in WWI/WWII scenarios. Hence the prominence of "Toy" in the title, the careful placement of obviously plastic toy war-game items on a "game board," and spinning wind-up knobs on the enemies' backs, because otherwise, it would be an intensely disturbing game. It's challenging and fun and frustrating and kind of creepy, but empty-feeling in the end, because it has no story. Plants Vs. Zombies, Garden Defense, and Defense Grid are all tower defense games that have good stories to go along with them, which makes them immensely more fun. I recommend any of those games to any of you who like playing that kind of game.

In other news, my SPN-cover EW still hasn't arrived yet. :-(

Comments

[milly-gal.livejournal.com]

I used to be pretty good at those types of games, but I haven't played for *so* long! I remember trying to beat this one level on something a million years ago. It'd been created by a college friend of mine, I was playing beta player mode and DAMN! I did something similar with the diagram. In the end he has to re-code the level because it was *too* hard to get passed, lol.

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, it would suck if the game was still in development and you had no real reason to believe they'd made it doable! Even so, some of these games, I go online to try to figure out what I'm doing wrong that I can't get gold level no matter how many times I try, and though for virtually every game there is an answer, for a few of them, it's basically impossible, which is just bad game design.

As much as I love to play video games, being a beta tester would be exhausting, I think!

[toratio.livejournal.com]

That sounds pretty awesome. Puzzle games mess with my head a bit, though. Although I do have a soft spot for Portal.

I like how video games have become more accepted as an art form, with games like Limbo and This War of Mine, and Papers Please taking games to new places.

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

It's amazing, isn't it? It's becoming, among other things, a new storytelling medium. (I just watched some videos of Papers Please--amazing, and scary!) For me, the puzzle games are easier and more relaxing than these types of games. But yeah, Defense Grid is HARD and sometimes exceedingly frustrating, and not for everyone.

[toratio.livejournal.com]

I love the different directions games are going in. I'm not huge on puzzle games - although Portal still rocks - but the storylines are getting more sophisticated, and they're starting to push boundaries.

[brightly-lit.livejournal.com]

Yeah, some of them are more like novels now, or even memoirs--it's really interesting--like a movie you get to participate in instead of just watch.