After doing laundry, vacuuming, and running errands, I was left two and a half blocks from a GameStop. I thought, what should I do? Go home or go shop. Well, I decided to go and see what was new and interesting in the store. I was curious about The Beatles: Rock Band, But I realized that I wouldn’t be playing it unless I was playing with others, and, even though my wife was a die hard, memorabilia collecting, Beatles fan, her schedule of classes, the extracurricular activities at school, limits her free time. Her need to recoup and rebuild for the upcoming weeks in her own way is important to me. So it was fun walking into the store and seeing all the display of boxes and signage trumpeting the Fab Four’s digital renaissance. The sales clerk, who recognized me from previous visits, said hi and asked if there was anything that I was looking for and a pleasant conversation ensued.
I really wasn’t a Beatles fan initially, as a matter of fact, although I thought the music was okay, It wasn’t until the Abby Road album that I recognized the genius of their work-better late than never, I guess. There was even talk of the remastered Beatles collection coming to iTunes today, even though Yoko Ono leaked that it would happen the other day, it still hasn’t happened. I’m not worried, I have enough songs on CD to cover the spread.
So I passed on the Liverpudlian rock band’s Rock Band, and remembered two other games that I was interested in, one was for the Wii,- Muramasa: The Demon Blade, and the other was IL 2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey for the PS3 and the Xbox 360 - a WW II aerial combat game. When I checked the morning reviews of games both received positive reviews.
The Wii game, Murasama: The Demon Blade, is basically a 2-D hack and slash game with elegant graphics that reminds me of some of the more beautifully illustrated children’s books (observations of an obviously one time doting dad-still am). After watching the video clips for it, the action is not for younger children. I’ve played them, but I’m really not a fan. Basically, I get angry and frustrated with my coordination, and it just isn’t fun for me after a few hours. As my students used to say, “My bad,” and in this case it is.
The other game is a WW II fighter battle game. Ever since I played Hellcats over the Pacific on the Mac, I’ve been looking for a good aerial combat game. I tried Tom Clancy’s Hawx on the Xbox 360, but the simulated speed was to much for me as I just couldn‘t get the hang of the relationship of speed to maneuverability . I’ll probably go back to it in the future. I found that if steep myself in gaming for awhile, my feel for the controls improve. So, I decided that I might give try IL 2 Sturmovik, and asked for it, not by name, for some strange reason all I could remember was that the game was a WW II fighter game, which elicited the sales clerk to respond Battlestations Pacific. “No,” I responded, "It was with Russian planes" (talk about sounding like I was in junior high). The wise clerk remembered IL 2, and said, “I sold the only copy, earlier today.”
Oh well, I decided to browse around and conversed with the clerk about upcoming games, until she had to wait on a paying customer. I checked the Murasama box, but didn’t feel strong enough about it to buy it, so I moved on. I checked the Xbox 360 section, nothing really. Then I wondered about Drake’s Fortune on the PS3. A new version was going to be released, and I wondered if there was a price drop. I looked around and what did I see, not Drake’s Fortune, but the PlayStation 3 version of IL 2 Sturmovik. Well, how about that! I picked it up, and took it to the counter to pay for it. The sales person said, “You have a PlayStation, too?” “Yes I do,” I replied. And I purchased it, put a five dollars down on both Halo: ODST, and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. I received as a reward, a IL 2 Sturmovik tee shirt and a PSN lanyard-double wow. Now, like the Peter Pan I can be, returned home to learn how to fly all over again. I hope, I don’t pick up any bad habits.
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