I Have Too Much Time On My Hands

I'm feeling a little nostalgic this week, mostly thanks to two GBA games I picked up this week: Metroid: Zero Mission, and Medal of Honor: Infiltrator. If case you were wondering, Infiltrator is not making me nostalgic for the bad old days of WWII, let me explain.

While the Metroid series is only three years younger than me, the Medal of Honor series is fairly recent, but this game definitely feels very old school. So no, this isn't another "try to make an FPS on the GBA but end up with something that looks like badly animated vomit" type of game, but an amalgamation of quite a few classic ideas. First is the top down action and stealth levels, which are much like a bullet-riddled stew made up of the best parts of a lot of classic shooters, not to mention games like the original Metal Gear. There are also some "shooting gallery" missions where you, you know, blow shit up. So that's how it goes, but along with the old school gameplay comes that distinctive Medal of Honor feel, complete with black and white WWII video (Yeah, it's pixelated FMV. No goofy sprites trying to look tragic here...), which adds just a bit of pizzaz. I know that I did just not write fucking "pizzaz". Damn it.

Anyway, Metroid: Zero Mission is... you know, Metroid. There has been a lot of niceties added since I played Metroid back in the day (when I was three...) that make it a whole lot easier, but it's still got that feel. I'm not going to sit here and try to explain to you what Metroid is, you should know that by now, but I do know that I've finally found something to draw me away from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance.