tutuboy95

@Video_Game_King: Hahaha, that's pretty accurate. I still love playing Yu-Gi-Oh! though, despite its common mediocrity in several areas when it comes to the games.

@Video_Game_King: Oh yes, of course! I forgot about 4Kids interpretation of him. How silly of me. ^_^

As I sit down and finish (read: start) my summer homework for AP European History, which mainly consists of outlining, I come across the Wars of the Roses. For those of you who do not know, following the great Hundred Years War in Europe between England and France, the House of York and the House of Lancaster, two rival branches of the English royal family, fought each other for royal supremacy. This duel was called the Wars of the Roses because, allegedly, the symbol of the House of York was a White Rose, and the symbol of the Lancasters was a Red Rose.

To summarize, Edward IV, son of the Duke of York, seized power of the Lancastirian monarchy and instituted a rule for over 20 years. His son was overthrown by Ed's brother, Richard III, and after Richard III died, the Tudor dynasty, of Lancastirian heritage, painted Richard as the bad guy, allowing Henry Tudor (Henry VII, not the guy in the show, Henry VIII) to eventually claim the throne. Oh yeah, there were several battles in-between (my book really doesn't go into that, strangely enough.)

Sadly, this reminded me of something else entirely.

I never actually owned this game. My friend did. However, he set a file up for me, and whenever I went to his house, we played this game.

The game is incredibly interesting, because you can side with the Yorkists (led by Seto Kaiba as Christian "Seto" Rosenkruez, who, by the way, has nothing to do with the Yorks) or Yugi Muto as Henry "Yugi" Tudor. Yes, you read that right. He's tired of being called Henry Tudor, so Yugi is an acceptable alternative.

At the outset of the game (keep in mind, this is a recreation of 9 year old memories plus Wikipedia), you get to choose to side with the Yorkists or with the Tudors. The goal of the game is incredibly simple; you duel several Duelists of the opposite Rose. If you side with Yugi, take down Seto's goons, or vice-versa. Typically, these are characters re-imagined from the show into several historical persons, or are just... themselves (Bakura is named... Bakura!). Some of these people are not actually from the Wars of the Roses, like Seto's character, but they are fairly old European people, so I guess that makes it OK?

The combat was what was different. It wasn't hard, but kinda weird. It's more like a strategy RPG in the sense that you move around a set field comprised of units and you attack monsters or give them boosts. Each character has a deck leader, not too unlike the one used in the 3rd season of the Yu-Gi-Oh! anime. Your deck leader actually represents your life points, and attacking it continuously will cost you the duel. Or win you it.

Terrain is also an element of the gameplay, also functioning similar to field spells, giving set bonuses to set types of monsters. It also results in the wonky labyrinth or the broken Crush setting.

This was such a weird game. But a fun one. Taking historical figures and adapting them, even loosely, is a pretty interesting concept, and I love it when games do such a thing. I may never play this game again (the friend and I aren't on good terms anymore). But even still, this game was fun because it was different, and as I continue outlining for Euro, I smile.

Then my right hand hurts because I have 20 more pages to outline.

I'm surprised how the average American household can watch so much TV a day. I think the estimate is like 7 and a half hours? Our TV of a year and a half clocks in at about 1200 hours, and there are a lot of times where we leave the TV on but don't watch it for a variety of reasons. Typically, your average American family would have watched 4000 hours by this time.

With that being said, I maybe watch TV an hour every couple of days, simply because there are quite a few shows I like that come on. But not that often, really.

Great movie. It was stupid, yet a Satire at the same time. I couldn't get enough of it. I think, though, that I laughed most when Wolf Blitzer and the other guys reported all the stupid stuff Will Ferrell's character was doing in-movie. I wonder how they could sustain from laughter.

Not sure if anime counts, but I watch a couple, like Fairy Tail and Hajime no Ippo.

I'm pretty disappointed with the quality of cartoons nowadays, but I loved Legend of Korra (and with that, the original Avatar!). Some others I watched were Spongebob (in it's golden days), Grim Adventures, Foster's Home, but my favorite was probably Danny Phantom.

Oh yeah, and if these count too, adult cartoons, primarily the Simpsons, but I watch Family Guy and American Dad sometimes.

1. I think we do have several timeless games. I would think Ocarina of Time and Chrono Trigger are pretty stellar examples of that. While their re-releases may have some more content, you gotta look at the fact that they barely change the source material, showing that these games can preserve well over a decade. I would venture to say NES classics count as timeless too, such as Donkey Kong or the original Super Mario Bros. (oh, and before I forget, Super Mario Bros. 3!)

With that being said, that era of timeless games will not disappear anytime soon. I personally judge timeless games by ones that can be played a decade later or so and still give a great vibe (subjective, I guess). So, who knows, maybe games like Super Mario Galaxy 2, Skyward Sword, or Skyrim can qualify as timeless too!

2. That's pretty funny, since last night I saw an episode of Franklin & Bash that I taped which dealt with this topic. I like the definition in the show, which is "Art is the intentional arrangement of pieces to inspire emotion."

From a video game perspective, that's presentation AND gameplay. I feel that both qualities have to move you in order to have the game defined as art. Let's take Final Fantasy XIII apart using this rationale. Everything about the presentation is god-damn gorgeous, some of the best graphics, sound, voice acting, you name it! out there. Great story too. But what if you don't like the gameplay? That was a point of contention for many, for its lack of freedom for 30 some hours. I may like it, but the guy down the street doesn't. The way I see can be summed up in two phrases.

• Each part can be broken up and called art. But unless the two can resonate in harmony, than the entire package is not.
• Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. With that being said, for a game to be truly, universally, defined as art, the community must give a general consensus.

Video games don't really need their own definition. True art usually has multiple facets to it, and video games should be no exception. That's just my 2 cents.

@benefitevil said:

Declaring a game "sucky" or "horrible" because they can't finish it in a day.

Really? In general, I find that the opposite is true. If it takes me a month to finish a game, I feel incredibly satisfied for taking that time. Of course, that takes the assumption that said gamer isn't playing for more than 12 hours straight into account, because modern games with less than 10 hours of content usually are not that great.

I love Greg, especially watching his video reviews. He's always so enthusiastic, making me feel he really loves doing this (or hates it, depending on the game). Here's to Greg, and I hope he pulls through.

@Spoonman671: Well, I didn't properly research, and now I find that out. Some models are, but not all. Didn't know that. Thanks man.