Gobble-Gobble

Happy Thanksgiving!

(It's my first Thanksgiving weekend that I don't have to spend at work! It'll be so very nice to spend it with family for a change.)

My Legend With Zelda

Today is a special day. Ten years ago on this day, November 23rd, 1998, the gaming industry in North America saw one of the most influential games released onto the masses. Heralded for bringing so many new features to the world of 3D video games and showcasing perfect controls and gameplay, it's hard to imagine what video gaming would be like today had gaming taken any other path.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is the absolute most important game in the The Legend of Zelda series, and a milestone in the industry as a whole. I won't argue if it is the best game in existence - in all honesty, that's a subjective viewpoint best reserved for each gamer's individual taste.

Without a doubt, however, The Legend of Zelda games as a whole are a landmark staple in the gaming industry. As a benchmark of action, role-playing and exploration, masterfully designed dungeons and puzzles, and even involving stories (Twilight Princess, particularly), Zelda means a lot to many gamers.

On this anniversary of the most important Zelda game released, I take a moment to look back on my history with The Legend of Zelda series.

I came to the Zelda party a bit late: it wasn't until 1997 that I even discovered what The Legend of Zelda was. Being dropped into the middle of the Zelda franchise felt a little disorienting at first, but it did allow me to catch up on a quite a bit of Zelda goodness in a short time. I have played all of the Zelda games in some form or another, but have fonder memories of some rather than others. Thus, here is my story - my history - for my experiences with The Legend of Zelda series, in perfect chronological order as I experienced the games.

Link's Awakening

In 1997, in the seventh grade at Otsego Middle School, I lived among a culture of gaming. It wasn't long into the school year that I realized just where I was: growing out of a "kid" phase, but just adult enough to make vulgarity part of my daily vocabulary. One day while enjoying our 11am lunch break, a semi-new friend of mine, Jason, was playing his GameBoy (the original gray brick!), and he had a recently-purchased game in it: The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening. He was stuck at some point in the game, and was frustrated enough to pass the GameBoy around our circle of friends, hoping someone would figure out how to help him.

After a few pairs of hands touched his GameBoy, my turn came up. I settled into my seat, leaned back, and got a glimpse of a little elfish character in the middle of a grassy field. I moved the character, pressed buttons, and soon my heart took off. I was in a fantasy world with limitless exploration, cool items to use, and a sword in hand. Granted, at the time, I did nothing more than run around with a shovel and dig rupees out of the ground, much to Jason's frustration. But unlike the Mario and Tetris games of my youthful past, this game let me explore to my heart's content, and sure enough, I wanted the game for my own. I bought it a few week's later with money saved up from around the house.

It took me about six months, but I eventually played through the entire game myself, and it became a staple in my GameBoy. Link's adventure was certainly quirky in many respects, but I loved every minute of the game. After the GameBoy Color was released in the late 90's and Nintendo reissued an updated Link's Awakening with color graphics, I did not hesitate to play through the game again - and again and again.

A Link to the Past

I bought a copy of this game at Walmart for $30 shortly after I began the eighth grade. Little did I know at the time that this was not a sequel to my precious GameBoy Zelda. As it turned out, I was missing a lot of Zelda history. Thanks to some issues of Nintendo Power (of which I was a loyal subscriber at the time), I quickly learned that the Zelda franchise spanned a full decade or so by the fall of 1997 that I was playing through A Link to the Past.

All in all, the color graphics, sweeping soundtrack, and extremely deep (and for me, challenging as hell) gameplay kept me hooked for weeks on end. More than anything, this game was huge - far larger in scope than Link's Awakening, and I spent hours at a time just poking around every corner of the game, exploring what there was to explore. After two months of playing it, I gave up on the game well into the adventure, frustrated by a pain-in-the-ass puzzle. Around December of 1997, I learned that a new Zelda game was in the works for my beloved Nintendo 64 platform. By this time I knew and understood Zelda well: it was one of my favorite games, and I needed to own the upcoming release. By the first couple of months into 1998, I took the time to finish A Link to the Past and prepared myself for the next great Zelda game.

Ocarina of Time

It goes without saying that this game is respected more than any other in the franchise. At 7am on a foggy November morning in 1998, I set out with my mom to Wal-Mart in Bowling Green, where I reserved the limited-edition Gold cartridge edition of Ocarina of Time. Upon hitting the car for the ride home, I shredded the plastic packaging (but kept the shiny cardboard N64 game box, still in mint condition today). Everything about the cartridge reeked of possibility, and I spent seven straight hours glued to my television that day playing Ocarina of Time. I have never spent so long in front of a television in one continuous play session.

Every moment of the game was simply an experience. Although not as overly difficult as A Link to the Past, it took me a bit longer to beat the game, namely because I spent a great portion of my time running about Hyrule, exploring every nook and cranny that the game world presented to me. Most interesting was the fishing minigame, which I spent a ton of time playing. The 100 Gold Skulltulas to collect kept me busy in between dungeons, and any side quest that involved exploring Hyrule usually became my favorite.

As of today, I've played through the entirety of Ocarina of Time several dozen times, I've marveled at its landscapes, swore at its challenges (although always overcame them), and have fallen in love with the game every single time that I boot it up. Simply awesome.

Oracle of Ages & Oracle of Seasons

With my heart set on Link's Awakening as being among my favorite of the Zelda's, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that two new Zelda games were being developed for the GameBoy Color. Although featuring an odd link-compatible feature-set, the oddball characters, unfamiliar story, and heavily-congested overworld steered me away from what were apparently really awesome Zelda games. Given how busy I was with gaming in 1998 (Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Turok 2), I found little time to devote to these two Zelda's. I hope that Nintendo re-releases them in some capacity in the near future so I can give them another go around.

Wind Waker

The Wind Waker was a mixed bag of Zelda goodness for me. On one hand, I fell in love with the artistic design of the game immediately upon playing it. The controls were tight as hell, seemingly fine tuned to levels that no other Zelda game had ever achieved. The game's story was overly convoluted and a bit unnecessary: why try to fit into the general Zelda timeline when plenty of other Zelda games have simply disregarded any sense of continuity?

But Wind Waker had something no other Zelda had to such extremes: exploration. Although set over a vast, vast ocean, so much of Wind Waker could be played simply as an adventurer. Sailing from island to island to uncover hidden secrets was fun enough, but then the ocean itself harbored hundreds of underwater secrets too. This was almost "Zelda GTA-style," and although the exploration could slow the main game down a bit, it was rarely necessary to progress the story along (although the Triforce map collection quest was a bitch!).

Twilight Princess

Nintendo hyped Twilight Princess as "Ocarina of Time reborn," and they were almost right. Returning to a mature-themed Zelda world, Twilight Princess brought a classy, dark, mature Zelda world to gamers, and plenty of game play to go along with it. Easily the most feature-filled Zelda game, the overall scope of the game is almost mind boggling. For a Zelda game, it has a surprisingly large Hyrule to explore. Getting around on horseback is necessary, and luckily the game drops this ability early in the game. A deep, involving story that takes a few twists and turn to keep things feeling fresh is the driving force of the game. Past Zelda's have had stories, although never one that is constantly the prime driving force behind continuing the adventure (I could easily say that Link's Awakening or Ocarina of Time sometimes just provided a story as a means to get from one dungeon to the next).

More than anything, Twilight Princess is Ocarina of Time highly refined. While I hold Ocarina of Time closer to my heart thanks to its age and longevity, Twilight Princess is a great play for a gamer with more modern taste in terms of graphics, story, and complexity. This is a close second to Ocarina in my book.

All the Others

I largely missed the NES-era of Zelda games, but I do have experience with them. I first played the original 1987 The Legend of Zelda while borrowing a friend's NES in 1998 or so, although at the time I found the stiff controls, lack of narrative, and completely open world as put-offs. In later play-throughs closer to 2000 (emulation by this point, mostly), I gave it second, third, and forth chances. While I never beat the game nor progressed very far, I did learn to appreciate how groundbreaking this type of game was in 1987.

I played Zelda II: The Adventures of Link for the NES very briefly, almost as a demo, and found - as most people did in 1988 - the 2D combat and disconnected overhead world to be jarring, and that pretty much sums up my experience with the game.

In Closing

If I had to personally rank my favorite five Zelda games, based solely on personal enjoyment, nostalgia, and other personal preferences, the list would look, in order, something like this:

1. Ocarina of Time
2. Link's Awakening
3. Twlight Princess
4. A Link to the Past
5. Wind Waker

It is without a doubt that my favorite Zelda game is also one of the most influencial games he industry has seen in general. In the past ten years, my gaming tastes have matured quite a bit, if not waned a bit with so many other things that have come along (college, jobs, other interests, etc.). But despite ten years - 3,653 days - having passed since that cold November morning in 1998, there is one game that I always will always mean the world to me.

Today I will spend a good chunk of my time replaying the beginning sections of the game, Kokiri Forest, and losing myself in a wonderful game.

What Has Been and What Will Be

A few notes on what has been:

• Been working like crazy (well 8 to 5, anyway), and all is well with me and my "new"job.

• I've been posting some rather awful sounding Facebook status updates lately. To explain in brief: Adjusting in my new job has been great for me, but not great for most everyone around me, so I've had to really pull myself out of my usual routine, consider my priorities, and give myself time to work out the kinks in my immediate and near-term goals. So far, I think things will get better over time, but I'm not leaving anything off the table at this point either.

• I have begun a major redesign of Critically Correct. If all goes to plan, I will soon be free of this rather confining Blogger template theme! Hang tight!

What will be:

• This coming Sunday is something special for me: November 23rd, 2008 is the ten-year anniversary of the release of my all-time favorite video game. It'll be one hell of a day for an update :-)

Sunday will be my next update, but until then I hope things go well for everyone. Looking at my blog, I don't think I will stick with this yellow color theme. Kind of... putrid looking, maybe?

B3 out.

Finding the Butterflies

There's a notion, a feeling, an indisputable feeling of euphoria that comes from craving something, wanting something, fighting for something, and desiring something, even if it does or does not come to you in any amount of time.

At various points in my life I have desired something - a goal to be achieved, if you will - and lately I've been taking a hard look at the distinct lack of a driving force in my life. Looking back, high school was distintly the most important time of my life in terms of driving force: of course it was a girl that I desired, and the desire was strong enough to push me to do new, drastic things sometimes. In other places in my life, it has been video games - the anticipation and build up to a major game release (Ocarina of Time, for example) or a big console release (4am in Toledo at Best Buy for the Gamecube, anyone?).

Ultimately, it's not what the driving force in my life is, but what it does to me that matters. Without a driving force in my life right now, I feel lethargic and stale, as if I'm not going anywhere. With this in mind, the obvious is clear: I need to figure out what brings out the butterflies in my stomach again; what pushes me to do new things; something to be excited about. Right now I'm stuck in routine, and it's still killing me.

Saving Me One Word At a Time

As mother nature churned an arctic blast of winter at northwest Ohio today, I finally settled on a plan to keep me sane as I continue to sink into a routine that is taking a heavy toll on me. With the usual routine of "work, girlfriend, sleep, repeat" chewing away at me (although don't get me wrong, each of these things on their own has plenty of positives), I turn to my past once again to find relief.

My first major priority is fiction. Although I haven't had time to keep up on reading like I wanted to during the summer, I am definitely making a huge push to get my creative writing back off the ground. I'm making sure that computers are not central to my writing career, so I'm making a serious effort to carry pen and paper with me at all times, making sure that every little creative thought or moment of inspiration gets written down and compiled for future possibilities. I hope this will help me focus my thoughts a little better.

My goal is to someday soon be able to write short-form fiction that allows me to crank out a story a week and get frequent feedback on my writing process. Despite the constant work that went into my creative writing workshop classes, I do miss the community, atmosphere, and consistent feedback that my workshops provided. Maybe I should find public workshops? Man, that would be scary and awesome all at the same time.

Hopefully this positive feeling about my writing sticks, because as things stand right now, my weekly routine feels narrow and confining, and my future potential limiting. I would like to make writing one of my forefront interests again, consuming more of my time than it has recently. But with a full-time job, a girlfriend to see, programming to keep up with, Guitar Hero 4 to get through (if my mom doesn't beat me to it), an exercise regiment that I'm trying to fire up, and a path towards spirituality that I'm beginning to seek, how the hell do I find time for writing?

It'll be an interesting couple of weeks going towards the holidays, that's for sure. B3 out.

Walking on a First Line

Outside of the tedious routine of work, sleep, rinse and repeat, I'm trying to rediscover some of the things that I enjoyed in college, especially writing and (occasionally) working out. Today I'm making some efforts to push myself towards these things, starting with the cozy outdoors. I spent an hour outside today staying well-more than moderately active, and intend to do the same tomorrow and Wednesday. An hour a day, four days a week of increased physical activity? I figure that's not too much to ask.

Secondly, I'm trying to get multiple story ideas written down. I haven't written anything significant since I graduated (sounding sort of cliche, I know), but I have been having too many solid story ideas lately to ignore. Still, whenever I sit down in front of my computer to hammer something out, nothing happens.

The best way to overcome an obstacle based in routine is to break routine. In my case, the Inspiron Mini is one method of breaking free from routine: rather than being bound to my house, I can effectively type away on fiction where ever I go. Even when this doesn't work, I'm considering toting around pen and paper for though times when I can't even wait the 45 seconds it takes to boot my laptop to get a good idea written down.

Sometimes I find it wise to follow the advice of my teachers from school; in other words, use what I was taught (how about that, school works!). One of my favorite exercises in my creative writing classes was routinely called "The first line." With this exercise, the writer is tasked with writing a number of potential first lines that might be featured in a larger work. While the first line of a short story is considerably more important than the first line of a novel, there is still utmost importance in nailing down that first bit of text that a reader will latch onto - maybe even remember.

With that said, and with so many ideas for new short stories floating about my head, I'm posting several first lines that come to mind - as an exercise.

Without further ado, some potential first lines:

The sun streamed into the car, painting horizontal rays of orange and yellow light across Mitch's face, and although the light bothered his eyes, his heart cut through the petty annoyance as he contemplated his moral undoing.

Christov rolled over in his cot, his skin tingling from the cold, unrelenting harsh winter winds and tried to move his body closer to the fire as it sputtered towards total darkness.

Like a dream that should not have ended, Lillith tore at the sheets of her bed as her lover gasped in the heat of an orgasm, his arms embracing her closer and closer - although she was still not satisfied, and her revenge would be swift and clean.

B3 out.