Can't I Be a Hardcore Gamer?

I know I mostly just post reviews of specific games and such, but yesterday we renewed our subscription to Game Informer and I was reading one of the letters to the magazine in the July 2010 issue that really got me thinking. I spend several hours a day playing games of different sorts, but I feel like the supposedly true hardcore gamers would say I am a casual gamer. The letter was complaining that Game Informer wrote about Farmville and the magazine should just be hardcore games like Halo.

Honestly, I do not care about 90% of the games they talk about in Game Informer. However, I still love to read it every month. The fact they have finally realized that they could change the balance to a little less of the supposed hardcore stuff in favor of just a little more supposedly casual game stuff is a plus to me. At the same time I do not like the label of hardcore because it seems to mean playing specific types of games and not quantity of gaming or variety of gaming.

I just do not see why cannot I be a hardcore gamer if I play a variety of genres that are all not the supposed hardcore games and also play those games very frequently. Sure, there has to always be limits to things like making the definition of hardcore, but I do not like limiting you to be a hardcore gaming to you playing specific types of games. Heck, you could play those games and actually be a casual gamer because you do not play regularly or at least in my opinion you could be. In contrast you could play none of those hardcore games and play only an hour a day of games of a variety of styles such as the scavenger hunt style of the Pacifico Webtrek, quick Facebook games like FarmVille, and the daily test on Brain Age; and I would consider that to be hardcore.

Nintendo Wii Screenshots: Madagascar Kartz

A couple weeks ago I played Madagascar Kartz on the Wii. I enjoyed it for about a week and then got tired of the racing. Part of the issue is it was too difficult to do well at some of the cups and it seemed like I crashed and ran into walls too often. The responsiveness seemed bad, but it actually had more to do with how I am used to holding the controller in a racing game. I usually hold it with the buttons towards me, but it works fine when I remembered to hold the remote with the buttons facing towards the ceiling.

Overall I really like the Madagascar Kartz racing. It is a lot like Mario Kart, but with the Madagascar characters and a few other Dreamworks characters that you unlock (such as Shrek and B.O.B.). I probably would buy this sometime if I saw it used at Gamestop, but it is not quite on my list of got to own right now.

Click the thumbnails below to see a larger version of the screenshots.

iPad Game Screenshots: Break HD Free

Break HD Free is a brick style game for the iPad. It is nice that it is free, but it really is not worth it. The graphics are rather ugly, but you know me the graphics are a minimal thing compared to gameplay. The game play works decent, but it is still not all that interesting. Worth about 10 minutes total play time before it got boring and I never have a desire to play it and I deleted it after a few weeks of never playing it except the first day I got it.

Click on the thumbnails below to see a larger version of the screenshots.

iPad Game Screenshots: Insanity X

Insanity X is an interesting puzzle game for the iPad.  You have to match up the triangles to match colors with the gray being on the outside.  It is pretty addicting for puzzle game fans like me.  I find it to be a fun game.  At first it was challenging, but I soon figured out a strategy and the levels became easy until I got further and it became challenging again when I got to the medium set of levels, which keeps it enjoyable.

iPad Game Screenshots: Racecar

Racecar for the iPad is a racing game.  The game is not exactly horrible, but the steering is downright annoying.  It is really hard to get the hang of controlling the car making this a pretty hard game to enjoy.  I guess if you have the patience to learn how to use the controls, then it might be somewhat enjoying.  However, I also do not think it has much depth even if you can figure it out.

Nintendo Wii Screenshots: Water Sports

Water Sports sounded like an interesting game because it has wakeboarding and uses the balance board. Well, it turned out to be quite disappointing. I am so glad I rented it, as I almost bought it and that would have been a major waste for me. Now the game is not entirely horrible if you use just the Wii remote, but the promise of balance board compatibility majorly fails because it just is not very responsive and can be downright frustrating for turning.

The Water Sports include kiteboarding, wakeboarding, windsurfing, and watercraft racing (Jet Skis). It is mostly just different ways of racing, except wakeboarding is just tricks. Wii Sports Resort is much better than this game even though it does not have all these events and does not use the balance board. The wakeboarding I thought would be fun with the balance board, but not with the lame way tricks are (just going off ramps and on rails) and the poor responsiveness of the turning.

Nintendo DS Screenshots: LEGO Battles

I finally can afford to have Gamefly again and my first rental was LEGO Battles for Nintendo DS. I enjoyed the game in that it was a lot like playing some strategy games I have played on the computer, such as Majesty and Rise of Legends. However, it is much less complex and at the same time not quite as enjoyable because managing these types of games on a little touch screen just does not work out all that great.

It is not as good as playing a similar style game on a computer, but since I have a Mac my options for that is pretty much nil that appeal to me. This is a decent alternative, but not quite good enough to keep me playing beyond a few missions because there was just too much wait time and not enough building up and actually doing stuff in the beginning levels.

Click on the thumbnails below to see larger versions of the screenshots.

iPad Game Screenshots: NBA Hotshot HD

NBA Hotshot HD reminds me of playing Hotshot as a tabletop game. It is as fun as I remember that being. It is to some extent even better because you earn balls as prizes and then you can use those balls when you play. The ball designs include NBA and WNBA logos. It is especially cool that the WNBA is included, as the iPhone version does not have the WNBA. The controls are sometimes not the best, but I have this on the iPhone and I think the iPad controls work way better and are not too bad. The iPhone version does kind of stink control wise along with it not having the WNBA balls.

The app does cost $2.99, but I found it very worth it. I hope they eventually update it with more prizes to earn, though. A multiplayer mode could also be fun, although I personally very rarely have anyone to play with.

Click the thumbnails below to see a larger version of the screenshots.

Nintendo DS Screenshots: Pokemon SoulSilver

This past week I have been playing Pokemon SoulSilver quite a bit. It is not a new adventure, as it is pretty much just a rerelease of Pokemon Silver. Yet, it does have a new feature of the PokeWalker, which adds an easy way for leveling up and a whole new dimension to playing on the go. Overall it is a fun Pokemon, but mostly for the nostalgia, as Silver was one of my favorite Pokemon games of all time because I remember playing Gold and Silver in Japanese before the versions came to the US.

My mom waited in line all day to go to the Pokemon store when she was in Tokyo for work and got me Gold and Silver in Japanese and I played through them quite a bit using some guides found online before the games came out in the US and then I played the Crystal version the most of the English versions. My guide for SoulSilver did not come until yesterday, but I have found it easy to play through without it at least at the beginning due to playing the game in Japanese at first and having to wing it even more than usual.

Read my more in depth look at SoulSilver here.

Click on the thumbnails below to see a larger version of the screenshots.