Drizzt Do’Urden: Ultimate Video Game Hero

I watched Hellboy II last night.  If you haven’t seen it, do so.  It’s pretty good.  Particularly interesting is the villain, Prince Nuada: he’s not evil, he’s not intimidating, and he actually means well.  Plus, he’s a badass elf warrior, and badass elf warriors never get old.

Just look at Drizzt Do’Urden, trademark character of fantasy author R.A. Salvatore.  I first read The Crystal Shard trilogy in college, when I was supposed to be reading my assigned texts for my English classes.  I haven’t been able to get much into any other Drizzt books since, but those three really grabbed me.  They were heroic fantasy of the finest stock.

Of course, the whole time I was reading those books I was thinking “Man, Drizzt would make an awesome video game character.”  I still can’t help but think that.  Sure, he’s cameo’d in a few games, but I want to see one where he flows freely with twin blades, executing intricate combos against waves of enemies.  Imagine a mixture of Prince of Persia and God of War and you have an idea of what I’m getting at, or maybe a Ninja Gaiden II that’s less over-the-top with gore and more tactics-based than, well, utterly ridiculous.  A game with brutal combat wherein Drizzt moves like Prince Nuada from Hellboy II; I would buy the Overpriced Collector’s Edition of that one.

So come on Some Enterprising Developer/Designer Team: get on it.

Prince of Persia: I Think I’ll Be Sitting This One Out

Heralded as the last big game of this year (after two months of escalating debt!), Prince of Persia dropped Tuesday.  I was going to get it, because, you know, I don’t really need money; however, after reading the reviews from Kotaku and Wired, I think I’ll be waiting for this one to hit the bargain shelf.  Essentially, it seems to be a pretty, pretty game with a great narrative experience, but it doesn’t offer a degree of challenge that makes any game seem rewarding.

In other words, it’s like another one of Ubisoft’ recent releases: fun to study and examine as a humanities work, but not that great when it comes to mechanics.   Assassin’s Creed was a beautiful display of graphics and an interesting case study of multi-layered story-telling, but the game play was so canned I just couldn’t be made to care.  I do want to play Prince of Persia mind you, and I’m not a fan of renting games, so maybe next summer when I just want something fresh and new, I’ll pick it up.

I did pick up The Orange Box last night.  Yes, yes: I know that I am a shame to my God, my Country, and my Mama for not getting it before now.  I know that it was folly to pay $15 for Portal: Still Alive from Live Arcade when I could have dropped the same amount of money on a used copy of the five-in-one package at my local Gamestop.  However, I–please don’t hurt me–never was big fan of Half-Life.  I still don’t think it will be my favorite series ever, but as I’ve played more games I’ve paid more attention to design and development and have a new appreciation for the classics.  So chalk it up to a more mature taste in games now, but after playing Portal and Left 4 Dead, I want to go back and experience all of Valve’s work.  First thing I’m doing when I get my PC is buy the original Half-Life from Steam.

Four day weekend coming up, so I will be gaming until my eyes bleed–and watching movies as well, and I’m launching on the ambitious goal of reading R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’Urden saga from start to finish–not all in one weekend mind you, but I will be reading those books exclusively until I’m done with the whole story.  Then I will wish once again that I had a real, honest to goodness Drizzt game on my hands–maybe one where he joins Batman in saving Gotham City from zombies!