Leveling Down

For the next few weeks, my Xbox is going to take a backseat to my favorite sporting event of the year: March Madness. What little time I have left for video games will probably be spent playing Dragon Age: Origins, and since we’ve covered that on the site, I figured I’d try something new: a video game bracket!

I’ve chosen 28 of my favorite games across 4 different categories (“regions”), and as the NCAA tournament plays itself out, so too will you get to watch this video game bracket play itself out. Why am I doing this? Well, I love brackets, first of all. Secondly, it’s a chance for me to take a trip down memory lane and narrow down some of my favorite games of all time. I recognize that a lot of times comparing games is like comparing apples to oranges, which is why I separated the games by genres (loosely).

Anyway, I’ve left the 8 seed open in all four regions, so I need YOU, the Leveling Down reader, to suggest games to finish out the bracket. Hit the jump to see the selection committee’s (aka, cmfl3x’s) criteria and some other notes about this totally awesome tournament.

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In Half-Life 2: Episode 1, you fight the Eye of Sauron……just kidding.

I ended Half-Life 2 on such a high note that I decided to jump straight into Episode One (though Episode Two will have to sit on the sidelines for a while since Modern Warfare 2 is out!). Half-Life 2 ended on an incredible cliffhanger, so I can’t imagine having to wait to see what happens next. Luckily, these games came out years ago so I could just move my cursor over one game to the right on the Orange Box and see what Episode One had to offer. Was this groundbreaker in “episodic gaming” (/sarcasm) as good as its predecessor?

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Half Life 2′s HUD is pretty simple, but gets the job done

The month of November, 2004 was quite a month if you were a fan of first person shooters. Two highly anticipated sequels, Halo 2 and Half-Life 2, released within a week of one another and gamers rejoiced. Since I wasn’t into PC gaming anymore (I haven’t really played a FPS on PC since Doom II if you can believe it), Halo 2 owned my time back then, and actually warranted me getting my first Xbox. Five years later, I have finally gotten around to playing Half-Life 2. It was highly praised 5 years ago, but does it still hold up now?

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I will defeat you this time…maybe.

At various times, espion4ge has chronicled various stages of his “leveling down.” Last night I made a leveling down type decision, as I decided not to go for the full 1000 points in Batman: Arkham Asylum. In addition, I decided not to pull the trigger on Borderlands, although I would have loved to play co-op with espion4ge. But I’ve decided that I’m going to devote my current playing time to trying out a new experience instead of the 15+ hours it would take me to get the last 230 GP in Arkham. Ah well…maybe in next year’s doldrums I’ll work on it. But anyway, as an attempt to be more “mature” and not waste any money on new games, I decided to revisit old titles that I never completed. Although I was tempted to try my $5 copy of Ninja Gaiden 2 and even removed it from the shrinkwrap, I ultimately settled on trying to finally finish a “classic”: Half Life 2 (on the Orange Box).

I’ve tried to play through Half Life 2 three times and never completed it. I’ve managed to get 2/3 of the way through, but I decided to start again from the beginning to get the full experience. After the first three chapters, I’m pretty impressed, especially considering the game is 5 years old. The great part about this game is it’s incredibly immersive. I never played Half Life and only know the story via Wikipedia, but even having not played the game, the opening sequence of Half Life 2 makes me feel I am thrust into a world full of oppression and pain. The voice acting is great, and even though Gordon Freeman never talks, everyone around him reacts to him which really makes me feel like I AM Gordon Freeman. Anyway, it’s all pretty neat, especially since the first two chapters start out kind of slowly and then ramp up into all sorts of craziness. Also, even though it’s a bit dated now, the physics and the use of gravity are really impressive.

As soon as I started this game (again) I can see why it’s considered a classic. Hopefully this time I can finally finish Half Life 2 (and Episodes 1 and 2). As of this writing that is my plan, but espion4ge just alerted me to a new deal at Amazon (buy over $80 worth of eligible games and get $40 credit). Curses…

One of my friends asked me last night if I was going to trade in Halo 3: ODST now that I had the 1000 in it. He was saying it gets something like $35, which is pretty good considering we ended up getting it for around that (or even less) when it first came out. In the past, I used to trade in practically any game I got all the Achievements I wanted in and moved onto the next game in my queue.

Over just this past year alone, I’ve started winding down on my gaming tendencies (yes, it’s hard to believe but I’m less hardcore today than I was years ago), and actually started missing games I had gotten rid of. So I started rebuying games that I knew I would want to replay again at some point, just for fun. Looking at my 360 collection today, I’ve realized that more than half of the games I currently own I’ve sold and reacquired.

Nowadays, I’ve decided that no matter how good of a deal it is to trade in/sell a game that I enjoyed, I won’t get rid of it since the amount of work it takes to reaquire the game just doesn’t make up for the nice little “deal” I got when I sold it. What majorly sucks is that several of the games I end up wanting to reacquire turn into Platinum Hits titles, and I hate that design. Therefore, I’m forced to scour used game bins or find people online to buy from that can get me non-platinum hits versions that are not all scratched like crazy. I feel like I’m in some sort of game rebuying netherworld where I’m paying for my mistakes. I owned these games in mint condition and now I’m spending time trying to track these same games down that will no way be in as good condition as when I owned them. Why couldn’t I just have been happy with my original copies and not sell them in the first place?

Currently, I’ve been spending the last few weeks trying to rebuy the following games:

Mass Effect – I actually want to replay through this before playing the sequel coming out early next year, but the tough part is of course finding a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Assassin’s Creed – Like Mass Effect, I do want to play this game again before the sequel releases next month but have to find a non-platinum hits version in great condition.

Fable 2 – Platinum hits was announced to be released in January, so I still have time to reacquire this game and I know I will want to play through it again before Fable 3 releases.

The Orange Box – I actually have cravings from time to time to play Team Fortress 2, and while I own it on the PC, people on the PC are too hardcore (clans and whatnot) so I just want to play it casually with my 360 controller. Plus, I figure I will want to play Portal again from time to time.

Once I successfully repick up these titles, I’ll only have a few left to go. Good thing I didn’t sell Halo Wars since I do have cravings to play that game too. In any case, that’s my simple warning to you – if you feel like at some point you may want to replay a game (just because it was amazing, you’ll miss it, or a future sequel gets you to want to replay its predecessor, etc.), consider holding onto it. I want to spare you this ordeal that I’m going through today…