The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

In 1998, I got a Nintendo 64 for my birthday. My parents got me the system, but after I opened it, they took me to a local store to pick out a game. I picked a baseball game, not even sure which one at this point. It was fun enough. I played a few other games in the coming months, but the one I REALLY wanted to play came out that November: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Now, this may seem like sacrilege, but I liked The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past, but I did not love it. As years have gone by, I've grown to love it, but I didn't at the time. Ocarina of Time seemed so, well, epic. I had to play it.

When the game was released, the city I lived in was being hit by a blizzard. Being the very smart thirteen year old I was, I decided I was going to walk a few miles to the local video store without A) checking to make sure the store was open, or B) making sure they even had the game and C) letting anybody know I was going out! So after the coldest, windiest and snowiest walk of my life at the time, I found myself at the video store. Thank God they were open AND they had Ocarina of Time. I rented that game and hurried home, that blizzard was really starting to get bad.

When I got home, nobody had even noticed I had left. When I told my mom what I did she wasn't exactly happy, but didn't punish me. My punishment was that I got really sick and had to stay home from school for the rest of the week. Oh darn, I had to stay in bed and play Zelda all day. The game was amazing, one of the best experiences I've ever had with a game. I continued to rent that same copy for about a month, my stepdad finally said "Let's just buy the damn thing, it will be cheaper than renting it over and over!".

Not since Chrono Trigger had a game captured my imagination so completely, this was one of a few games that I felt totally transported to another world when playing. I've played most of the Zelda games released since Ocarina of Time, and there are some really great ones (A Link Between Worlds was awesome) and even though I've liked some, not really gotten into a few more and really liked others, there just hasn't been an "Ocarina of Time" experience for me since. I'm sure there's some nostalgia, and the very few detractors the game has are loud (and wrong), but the game is simply a masterpiece.

I hold out hope that the upcoming and yet to be named "Zelda Wii U" will be that "Ocarina" type experience. In fact, I hope it's so good that I don't refer to the experience as "Ocarina" like, and it gets it's own level of awesome. Later today I've got The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD coming in the mail and that got me thinking about where the Zelda craze truly started for me. I hope you enjoyed my rambling.

Score: 36 Eponas out of 36.

Mortal Kombat XL

I want to talk about Mortal Kombat XL, just kind of some random thoughts and impressions. I've been playing MKX since it's release last April, and it's a really good game, but I've had issues with it since day one. Online was awful in the beginning, it got kinda better, and I must admit that I haven't been online since it was improved most recently, frankly, it's too late for me to care about it. Speaking of online, I hate that certain character skins are unlocked online. No other way, just online. Screw that, well there goes a few skins for me, what about the players that don't have an internet connection? Just screw them, NetherRealm Studios?

Anyway, let's talk about MKXL, the "complete" version of the game. So sixty U.S. dollars gets you the original MKX content, the first Kombat Pack (playable characters Jason, Predator, Tanya and Tremor), the second Kombat Pack (playable characters Leatherface, Alien, Triborg and Bo' Rai Cho), The Pit arena and all the skin packs that were previously released. Sort of. Well you're screwed if you want Gold Scorpion, but hey, that's for the Kollector's Edition of the game, so fair point on excluding that.  Also, you have to buy Blue Steel Sub-Zero and Krimson Ermac separately. Why are the mobile skins not included? It wouldn't be so bad if they didn't blatantly show Injustice Scorpion, a mobile unlock, in the damn announce trailer while advertising you get all of the skins. I have the mobile app, I've unlocked all the skins, but that's some shady business.

You still need to unlock everything. I guess that's fair, but the previous installment's (Mortal Kombat on PS3 and Xbox 360) Komplete Edition had everything unlocked from the beginning, so why change that? Then again, the "Komplete" Edition of that game isn't complete seeing as how the PlayStation Vita got exclusive skins. Let's talk about the characters from Kombat Pack 2. Bo' Rai Cho, great choice, Triborg, trying to please all of the cyber-ninja fans with one character, okay I guess, Alien, goes with Predator, why not? Leatherface. Who in the hell asked for Leatherface? Forget for a moment that most of the fans wanted another Mortal Kombat character (Fujin or Li Mei...), Leatherface doesn't even go well with Jason, the other Horror Icon in the game. I get that they didn't want to re-use Freddy from the previous game, but what was wrong with Michael Myers from Halloween or Ash from Evil Dead? Leatherface. I'm very open with the roster choices for an MK game, and I get why guest characters are a thing, but nobody wanted Leatherface. Except maybe Ed Boon.

Anyway, the game plays well, looks decent, sounds great, and everything else I've mentioned before, and will likely mention again in a proper review. I know A LOT of people find this to be the best Mortal Kombat game to date. Sorry, I'm not one of them. Don't get me wrong, I really like the game, but it's not my favorite, nor do I consider it the best. Gameplay is a HUGE part of what determines the best in the series, but so does story (yes, story in MK is VERY important, to me at least) and impact, MKX or XL, is not the top in all three categories, or even two out of three. A case can be made for it having the best gameplay, it's story is good, but not great, it's impact is not at the top of the MK list. It didn't start it all like MK1, it didn't improve dramatically like MK2, and it didn't save the franchise from certain death like MK Deadly Alliance or MK (2011).

Is it worth sixty dollars? I guess so, if you are a big MK fan, but if not then I'd probably hold out until it's cheaper considering you still have to buy a couple of skins if you want them all.

Final score: three and a half Zombie Liu Kangs out of five.