But soon I realized what a terrible mistake I made. These games were much less fun than I remembered. I mean don't get me wrong, it's still fun going around blasting Nazis and listening to their dying cry of "Mein laben!" (Or whatever.) The problem with that game is instead of shooting Nazis, most of the game is wandering mazes of identical corridors, searching for keys, doors to fit those keys, and feeling up walls to find secret doors. And sometimes they're diabolical and put a key IN a secret room, so unless you feel the right spot on a wall you can spend forever just walking around. And since there's no map and most of the walls looks the same, it's really annoying.
I think part of my false memories with this is I think my brother and I only had the shareware version, which has only the first episode. This version I bought had all 6 episodes and it really gets monotonous after a while.
There's less feeling walls in Doom II, but still plenty of wandering around levels trying to figure out how to find a key or open a door. It's like when I played a couple of those Lego games and at some point the only way to beat a level is to do something you've never done in the game before, so why would you think to do it now? I mean one you're supposed to shoot at the wall and another punch a wall to open a door. Why would I think to do that when I've never had to do that before?
In both cases it's good for YouTube. Many times when I got stuck I'd watch a walkthrough someone made so I could see how you're supposed to do it. It was a lot better than trying to read a written walkthrough or look at a static map because especially in Wolfenstein so many of the corridors look the same that trying to describe them is futile. It' easier to just watch it from the first-person perspective.
But it is really annoying to have to resort to that. I guess I was blinded by rose-colored nostalgia filters and didn't remember what a pain in the arse those games were.
It reminds me a few months ago I watched some episodes of Cheers on Netflix, mostly late at night. God, I didn't realize how dull and juvenile that show was! One whole episode revolved around who could kiss Rebecca first: Sam or Woody. Really? Is this fucking middle school? I hardly could stay awake for a complete episode because they were so boring. But the theme song is still good. Especially the version at the end is really soothing.
As a Fun Fact, when watching that show did you ever think Woody Harrellson would end up being the most successful cast member after the show ended? I mean Ted Danson has been in some mediocre series and the occasional film role, Kelsey Grammar had Frasier and a small role in what's generally regarded as the worst X-Men movie (other than Wolverine Origins), John Ratzenberger had roles in the Pixar movies, and the others would pop up every so often in something, but Woody, the dumb bartender, has and continues to appear in big movies like The Hunger Games, War for the Planet of the Apes, and the Han Solo movie as well as smaller, more artsy movies. Honestly, who saw that coming in 1992 when the show ended?
2 comments:
The old games are more fun to think about than to play them. They just don't hold my interest anymore. When I first saw Woody Harrellson in something other than cheers, I was a bit surprised. He really is a good actor.
That's funny. I actually used to play Doom II !
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