I like doing multiple runs of games similar to that. I usually do a normal one first. Then a challenge run, then an easy run to try out all the things that weren't practical or were risky in the other difficulties, like using melee weapons in a shooter
Demon's Souls. That's all I have to say about that year.
I thought R Type 2 was pretty hype when I played it on MAME. Better than R-Type LEO, which all the shmup sites recommended as one of the best horizontal shooters, but I found lacking. Plus R Type 2 looks better and more like the first game than LEO. And it is tough. These hori games are often considered more punishing than the more recently popular vertical "bullet hell" games, due to the amount of memorization involved and the lack of screen clearing options
Never played Super. In fact, I only learned that it was basically the same game as R-Type 2 a few years ago. I had no idea.
I remember when it came out. I was in art school. Didn't own a PS1 but there were a few people around who had, and they even brought their systems with them to hook up to the TV in one of the classrooms after class (the atmosphere was very loose at this school). One day someone brought Tomb Raider, the week it came out. We sat there and watched him play it for a few minutes, and I could feel the excitement in the air as the action unfolded before us. Very memorable moment. You just knew it was a game changer just by looking at it, and that PS1 was the console to have.
I'm glad you're not using glue boards. I think they are sadistic, frankly. I've seen pieces of mouse on glue boards elsewhere. I felt very bad when we used one one time and a mouse got stuck on it. It was still alive and I didn't have the heart to put it out of its misery, so I just put it in the dumpster. Then all I could think of was that little thing laying there alone in the dark, slowly dying, stuck. Pitiful and cruel fate.
I think the social isolation I've gone through the last few years has given be a bigger picture, non-humancentric view of existence. Aside from family, human beings are about as apart from me now as any other mammal. Thus, the suffering of humans and animals has become equal to me. It reminds me of a Conan story I read where he was contemplating some large, carnivorous reptile that was waiting to eat him. In his mind, there wasn't the huge gulf between him and this other creature that civilized man would see. It was just another organimsm with its own counterpart characteristics. That's where I am now, for better or worse.
"Mind blowing" is a little hyperbolic for me :D But the ones that had my eyes glued to the screen were probably Battle Arena Toshinden when I saw it in a news report, and then Resident Evil, which piqued my interest in an magazine preview but moved into must-have/game changer territory when I saw a friend play it. I bought a PS1 soon after.
For me it will depend on the payment model. It seems to play more like a single player/co-op ARPG than a grindy "theme park" MMO, so far at least, so it's a more immediate and quickly paced affair. I'll admit that if there was an offline game that looked like this and serviced my old school ARPG nostalgia I wouldn't bother.
I did play some Devastation. If you're not hung up on length, it is one of the best action games you can get this year. For Transformers fans in particular, it is a must play.
Cartoon like or caricature like graphics are also traditional. Think of all the Atari games, arcade games, NES games, Genesis games, DOS games. pretty much every system up until the PS2/Xbox, and you see how dominant non-realism has been. And I personally think World is better looking than the Wii and DS NSMB, it's just not as technically advanced. The models in NSMB look like sterile plastic toys. They did nothing interesting with the modeling, shapes, or textures when they converted the Mario look to 3D, the lighting is flat,and the color gamut is a radioactive eyesore.
Anyway, outside of realism (including comic book/ illustrated realism like Street Fighter 3 or Starcraft), I like Donkey Kong Country Returns/Tropical Freeze, Super Ghouls and Ghosts, Day of the Tentacle, Frontier: Elite 2 (kind of cheating, but I like the style). And most recently, Transformers:Devastation. I want a game of every 80s cartoon done like that.
You've given me an idea to do a blog about games with my favorite cartoon graphics, (using the definition of 'cartoon' relating to humor and/or cuteness). It's a style that I have come to appreciate more and more, and it looks great in video games.
2008 was the year of MGS4. I bit the bullet and bought the PS3 just for that game.
I did enjoy Wall E and Hellboy 2 at the theater. I'm not a big Pixar fan, but I consider Wall E to be top 3 along with The Incredibles and one of the Toy Story's (either 1 or 2, don't quite remember which one I liked more).
I do tend to read at least a few books every year, but I can't remember what books I read what year. Possibly something by Charles Bukowski or Robert E. Howard.
