PlayStation: Summer Gaming: A Resignation

Well, the last weekend of August is here, and with that my Summer Gaming challenge whimpers out. I'm sad to say that although I went into this in June with guns blazing, I'm left with six of my ten games unfinished. Why did I fail to such a degree? For one thing I seemed to have chosen a lot of longer and more involved games. You'll notice that the ones I beat were a lot more arcade-style.

So let's take a look at what I'm left with...

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Chrono Trigger is definitely the game I enjoyed most out of the unfinished pile. It's also the one I spent the most time on. Truth be told, it was one of the first Summer Games that I started playing in June. And I kept up with it on and off throughout the three months. In the end, I put fourteen good hours into it and made it up to the twin Golem boss fight. Unfortunately, I just didn't have the right equipment to finish the fight. And one thing that I hate doing is backtracking. So I ended up just sort of stalling right there. Admittedly, this is one game I do plan to eventually pick up and finish. Just not in the next few days.

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After years of assuming it just wouldn't be my sort of game, I am now officially a fan of the Metal Gear Solid franchise. I found everything about the game utterly brilliant, and again I do plan to eventually finish this one as well. The hard truth is that I'm just not good at the game, no matter how much I like it. So even if it is considered a shorter game, it's taking me a lot longer than it probably should.

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Duke Nukem 3D turns out to be a lot of fun. And I was playing it for the first time as all the hype about Duke Nukem Forever being a catastrophe was hitting hard. So that was interesting timing, too. I found the levels to be excellent, and basically it's the kind of FPS I really enjoy. However, like MGS, I'm just not great at FPS games. So each level would take me like an hour. It was slow progress and I stopped somewhere around one-fourth of the way through the PS1's extended version of the game. I don't know if I'll have finish the entire game, really. But I'm sure I'll revisit it and make more progress anyway.

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I was warned not to include R-Type Delta on my list for the simple reason that I just would not be able to beat it. I laughed. Surely if I put some time into it and memorized levels and enemy patterns, I certainly could beat it! I had no problem making it through the first level without losing a ship. But level two. Woah. I lost them all. Fast. And as it turns out, Delta really is one big jerk of a game. Don't get me wrong, sometimes it's fun to take abuse. But there was no way I was going to beat this one.

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Myst is a game I played for about fifteen minutes. And y'know what? I don't think I like it.

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Unfortunately Silent Hill is the one game I didn't get a chance to start up. It's also the one game on my list that I had played some of prior to the challenge. At any rate, I obviously plan to play through this sometime in the future. I'm actually contemplating attempting a similar Winter Challenge later this year. So we'll see...