User:MaskedSheik

Welcome to my userpage. I'm not a huge contributor to Wikipedia, but I make an edit if one is patently necessary. I rarely overhaul an entire article, usually preferring to tweak and copyedit. You can read in detail my areas of expertise, but I generally know the most about video game-related topics. I am usually hesitant to add information to articles without having sources handy, however, so even for video game articles, I tend to fix grammar and do cleanup work instead of writing anything new.

[edit] About me

I am currently a senior in high school. If I had to pidgeon-hole my personality, I would call myself a "nerd," but many of my activities and interests lie outside that realm. I probably spend the greatest amount of time and energy on music, particularly singing (though I have a passing familiarity with jazz piano and am always ready to bust out Misty or the Super Mario Bros. theme song). Math is also one of my primary interests, and one that fits the "nerd" mold more clearly; I am a member of my high school's math team and consider myself rather good at it.

Outside of school, I spend a lot of time playing and discussing video games. I am especially familiar with Dance Dance Revolution, Pokémon, Super Smash Bros., and Super Smash Bros. Melee, but I play many video games and am familiar with most of the famous ones.

[edit] Random lists, factoids, and other quirky MaskedSheik things

Like Randall00, from whom I stole this userpage layout, I am a numbers person, and I love to make lists, declare fun facts, and make commentary thereof. This section serves as a repository of information mostly for myself, though if you take an interest to these tidbits, read on, my friend....

[edit] Video games

[edit] My games of expertise

Let "expertise" be interpreted lightly, for I claim no mastery of any game. However, I have stumbled upon the competitive communities of a variety of games, so that I know the games more-or-less fluently. Other games, I have played extensively, learning enough to form educated opinions. In any case, there are a number of games for which I know more than the average player, so I'll run through the gamut.

• Super Smash Bros. Melee: I am no pro, but I am familiar with the big names (my favorite player: Mew2King) and have participated in the GameFAQs and Smashboards communities for a few years. Thus, I have a sense of strategy for many characters and can defeat the majority of you in battle. My main characters are Marth and Captain Falcon, though I have not touched a Gamecube controller in a long time.
• Pokémon: I haven't yet caught up with the 4th generation (an aside: the newest Pokémon are the worst designed, with some, such as Heatran, being inexusably ugly), but I'm familiar with the first three generations and their competitive scene (Pokémasters was my first ever message board). Additionally, I can explain the Mew glitch and the Missingno. glitch in detail, in case the need arises for me to edit such pages. As a side note, I almost swept a team on NetBattle with my Rapidash :).
• Dance Dance Revolution: Since May 2005 I've been playing DDR about once a week as part of my exercise routine. I can play up to the medium-level 10's on single (MAXX Unlimited), and up to the 9/10 barrier on double (Daikenkai, almost passed Max300), but generally I prefer to keep to 7-9 foot songs. My favorite stepcharts are Spin the Disc single, Feeling of Love single, and Exotic Ethnic double. My level of DDR play largely spills into In The Groove and also enables me to play Pump It Up with some fluency.

[edit] Gaming ideology

My ideology about videogames has largely been shaped by Flying Omelette, her boyfriend, and their websites. They both espouse difficulty and maturity in games. More specifically, when level design and the controls coalesce into a whole that challenges and engages me, the game succeeds. Reviewers should thus principally examine the principal element of a "game," the gameplay. Music, art, and storyline come second.

Though, surely these elements contribute to the overall appeal. I am not invulnerable to eye-massage; the visual art of a game contributes to its overall value. However, we must evaluate these elements maturely, with a broad perspective. Just as Citizen Kane's masterful camerawork excels in the face of today's superior technology, the lush colors and contrasts of Castlevania III merit a much higher score than that bloom-and-dust fest, Shadow of the Colossus. I, thus, oppose the general opinion that later games have better art (or "graphics," that lousy impersonal term) by sole virtue of their being "advanced".

Likewise, I oppose other recent trends in the gaming forum. Recently Roger Ebert stated that videogames are not art. Henceforth the gaming community whined and whined about how some videogames are art, citing examples such as fl0w that are the least interactive and, thus, the least like video games. Even fl0w's fans praise the game as an "experience," as unlike its videogame brothers and sisters. And that, by its passivity, fl0w should be considered art and Super Mario Bros. not? The hypocrisy is transparent, and underlies a sort of "movie envy" gamers have harbored for a while - the more realism and the less interaction, the better!

But beyond this problem even, we can see with some perspective that the whole issue of whether games are art is irrelevant. If Roger Ebert went out and said, "I changed my mind - I believe that video games are art," what would that do for gamers? Make us feel good about ourselves?

If we gamers really want to be recognized as a legitimate, mature group, the change needs to be us.

The best thing we gamers can do for ourselves is realize that we are terribly mired in low standards and poor criticism. Gaming magazines offer us grade-schoolish reviews, too pansy to give games anything lower than an 8/10, abiding by a formula that would be entirely laughable if applied to a movie review. If we awake to this immaturity, we can counteract and thereby garner the respect given to the grown-up forms of art.

[edit] Favorite games

This list is not necessarily in order, nor is it definitive. I have not played many games, especially recent games, so this list misses many great games (notably, for instance, Goldeneye 007). The games that are on this list, however, impress me with an unusual depth or brilliance.

• Super Mario Kart: my all-time favorite game, the controls and levels never cease to thrill me. Nintendo designed each level with both sense and flair - the course twists and sets up obstacles creatively, masterfully, and rightly, flooding the player neck-deep in difficulty. And nothing matches the bombastic finale of Rainbow Road.
• Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels: famous not just for being hard, but for relishing in the player's frustration. The Warp Pipes take you backwards. The Hammer Bros. and Piranha Plants won't follow rules. The wind shoves you off ledge. And from that very unfairness roots the genius of the level design.
• Final Fantasy VI: this is the first and only RPG that really wows me. A heartfelt score and story are only appendages to meat of FFVI's success: its battles, which jerk you about in skin-on-teeth random fights and whose boss battles require foresight, improvisation, and a head for strategy that far exceeds the "hit the right enemy with the right attack" formula that services most other RPG's.
• Super Mario Bros. 3: much has been said about this masterpiece of a platformer, so I'll keep this short. Each world has a theme, and each level reflects its world's theme, never too literal, never too gimmicky, and always with intelligence and insight.
• Super Mario Bros.: I haven't heard much talk about Super Mario Bros.'s enemies, but they are excellent, perfectly suited for a platformer. Didn't every subsequent game fashion its foes after the archetypes of the Goomba, the Hammer Bros., the Lakitu? Beyond its influence on other games, though, these unforgettable enemies provide more evidence that Super Mario Bros. succeeds as a game in itself.
• Yoshi's Island: its crayon-inspired art is the best in any game I've played. A palette of great bosses solidifies the gameplay.
• Donkey Kong Country 2: this game is one of the best pieces in transition from the goal-focused design of Super Mario Bros.'s levels to the trend of exploration. The midpoint is secrets, whose days of glory are with DKC2.
• Panel de Pon / Tetris Attack / Pokémon Puzzle League: a league above Tetris, for my money. I prefer Pokémon Puzzle League, though the base gameplay is identical for all three games.