Someone once told me that being in Washington, D.C. in the summer is like being surrounded by the breath of a giant dog — stinky, humid, hot — and I’ve gotta say that being a little ways outside D.C. isn’t much better. After weeks of being constantly cold in San Francisco’s misty, windy, sub-60 temperatures, stepping off the plane in Baltimore was like suddenly being smothered beneath a sticky wet blanket. Kind of a shock!
Equally shocking is that my finacée’s nephew and niece have already begun calling me “uncle Jeremy.” I guess I have to start being an adult now. My first odious task: I have to figure out a way to let my new nephew down gently. He seems to think I make games rather than merely write about them and has been pumping me full of concept pitches ever since I landed. His most developed concept so far — which is, and I quote him here, “really awesome” — involves flying a plane trying to avoid lightning so you can collect money. Surprisingly, I can’t seem to find a single game that actually uses that as its premise. I think think it might be easier to download some kind of freebie game dev engine and whip up something ridiculous for him to play than to crush his tiny heart by admitting that, sorry, your rad new uncle is actually just an uncreative hack writer.
Anyway, here’s something someone else wrote. Man, I don’t even do my own writing now! My life is an empty lie.
Pokémon Red & Blue
Yeah, like we were going to publish a comprehensive Game Boy retrospective without touching Pokémon. What a great idea that would have been. Maybe we could have followed it up with a piece on PlayStation that never mentions Final Fantasy or a ZX Spectrum history that ignores the existence of Ultimate Play The Game. I’m, like, so sure. Whatever.
“My life is an empty lie.” Hooray adulthood!
Welcome to Baltimore. It’s like this all the time here. Down to the crushing of tiny hearts.
It’s a sign that you need to get to work on The Venture.
I’m assuming you’ll instantly ban any of us that tries to call you “Uncle Jeremy”? Should I not even joke about that? Yeah didn’t think so.
“Some require trading special stones with a friend”
Not to nitpick, but didn’t item trade evolutions only come into play with GSC?
Regardless, excellent article from TheSL. Pokémon’s always held a special place in my heart, and it hit all the notes as to why it’s there.
That change was a contribution of the editor, since my original wording was kind of crap. Before that it said “Some take special stones or being traded with a friend to do this”; I know you couldn’t trade items until G/S/C.
Being an uncle is awesome, especially when you’re a “favorite uncle” to your nephews/nieces. Granted, in my case that status likely stems from the fact that I’m their only source of video games (mostly Mario Kart Wii (“the racing game”) and various Mega Man games (I play, they enjoy)).
Also, lightning-dodging? I think, if anything, FFX taught us that was a bad idea. Perhaps laser-dodging would probably be a better.
Good articles. I think you mean that Playstation software went from $50 to $40.
A nitpick: I keep seeing the DS compared to the N64. I know it has a port of Mario 64, but I think it is closer to PS1 in specs, with its lack of perspective correction and anti-aliasing.
Don’t feel bad about being an uncle, my little sister was an aunt at 3 years old.
No, PlayStation software started at $60, which was still a break compared to 16-bit cart prices. Sony dropped standard pricing to $50 pretty early to put pressure on the competition, and then used Parappa and Bushido Blade as the vanguards of an effort to price some (but not all) new releases at $40.
Sheesh, cut the man down Parish. You’re just like the pixel art on your website, rough around the edges ;)
The best part of this post is knowing that the weather in the Baltimore/DC area only recently got to its most nastily humid state. Prior months were kinda nice!