Mostly Normal Monthly #0012, August 2021
One year of Monthlies!
Hey! This message is coming from Chris, the erstwhile compiler of the Mostly Normal Gamers team’s monthly musings. As you may have heard on episode 111 of our lovely podcast, we’re putting Mostly Normal Monthly on a pause for a while. Frankly, I need a chance to catch my breath. Thanks for sticking with our little digital rag, and stay tuned to the show’s Twitter and your podcast feeds for more gabbing about games.
Showtime
By Chris Stern
Fortnite’s recent Rift Tour proves the game is essential to Gen Z.
I work in a runaway and homeless youth shelter. We have an Xbox that was donated for the kids to play so that the tragic circumstances they find themselves in can be made a little more bearable. Fortnite has been the most consistently played game on the agency’s Xbox over the last year. Disclosure, I have avoided playing too much of and discussing Fortnite in too much depth until now, as my cousin’s husband has been working on the game since before they added the battle royale mode. Recently, I observed a kid who does not have WiFi at home consistently place 3rd in match after match, while popping off headshots like it was nothing and putting 8 to 13 eliminations on the score board. Watching over the shoulder of this noggin-knocker made me think, “Hey, I have WiFi at my house, so I should be at least 10x as good as this Luddite.”
During a fateful overnight shift, I found out how truly wrong I was. This being my first real crack at playing the game since it came to the Nintendo Switch about 3 years ago, I expected things to go … poorly. Instead, I wound up doing okay, and even had a game where I got 5 eliminations and made it to 3rd place. That felt good.
Actually, that felt really good. I immediately downloaded the game to my Xbox and Switch when I returned home the next morning.
I have been popping into Battle Royale matches daily over the last week or so and have had a blast. There are still times that I feel like I have no control over how well I do—shout out to the match where I got 2nd place while using a Legendary Railgun—but I could very well be getting a bit better each game. Don’t get me started about my Sunday morning of the team deathmatch mode.
No moment of me being on the sticks has been as fun as observing the highs and lows of the young people who are practically Fortnite natives. The highest of these highs happened on Friday when I was stuck at work later than usual.
Turns out, Epic was hosting a big concert with Ariana Grande, an artist I love, over this very weekend. The Rift Tour featuring Ariana Grande. Wow, what a name. So accurate. I had the pleasure of seeing a 12-year-old dance, play, jump, and ride through rainbows during this odd digital concert experience. To see the joy of this young person was to see true bliss. Did it matter that they misunderstood that there was no way that Ms. Grande was somehow performing this live-to-Fortnite? Not to me. Did it matter that I could have easily listened to uncensored versions of these tracks at any point? Not really. What really mattered was that the magic trick worked for this kiddo—they were at a concert. I got chills from the ways the gameplay, visuals, and music aligned to build up excitement until Ariana G. took the “stage”. I have never related to someone as hard as when the youth tried to jump onto the staircase Ariana’s avatar climbed, only to fall into the void and reappear on the ledge they started from.
Is Fortnite a colossal, universe-devouring, marketing exercise? Probably (yes). Is it also pretty cool that the biggest game in the last 5 years is free, runs on anything, and lets a kid going through a rough time dance and laugh at a virtual Ariana Grande concert? Undoubtably.
A Trip Back to 2004
By Jon Swanson
Jon explores the depths of 2d Metroid masterpieces.
The announcement of Metroid Dread dropping in October has inspired me to go back and play some of the older 2D entries in the Metroid series that I missed. This gave me a perfect excuse to bust out an old GameBoy Advance SP I got from a friend who no longer used it. As I never owned the console when it was part of the contemporary console lineup it was a welcomed opportunity.
As I said above I got this GBA from a friend. I have no idea how long it had been since it was turned on but it’s safe to say it had been several years as it hasn’t been relevant in over 15 years. However, in true Nintendo fashion, the console still held a moderate charge. I’ve noticed this with all Nintendo handheld consoles I’ve owned. They can be left untouched for ages and when you come back they’re ready for you. I’m not sure what kind of witchcraft Nintendo is up to with their batteries but in our current energy crisis perhaps they should be where we look for a solution.
The next thing I noticed was the absence of several quality of life features we’ve become accustomed to in the modern ages. The GBA SP had a backlit screen but you had two options: on or off. While the screen is backlit it’s far from a brilliant light source; you will still need to be in a relatively dark room in order to see the screen.
The GBA SP also lacks a proper headphone jack. You can purchase an adapter that would supply you with a place to plug in your headphones. This is probably one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever seen as the port for the adapter is far bigger than the headphone jack (yes, I’m buying one because I have a problem). I think this port, however, was also used to link GBAs with your friends to play games such as The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords so I guess we’ll give them a pass.
A true suspend function is absent from the GBA. Instead several games, such as the one I’m currently playing, Metroid: Zero Mission, supported an in-game suspend. This relegates us to a time long passed where you had to reach a save point in order to turn off your game. Anyone miss those days?!
Lastly, is the absence of any sort of internet support or game store. I’m not sure why but in my head the internet and Wi-Fi have been ubiquitous for a long time. I easily forget that globalized communication in the palm of your hands is still a relatively new thing. If you’ve been on the internet recently you might also think we're better off without it.
Despite the absence of these numerous features it’s been fun to go back and try out the GBA. It’s even inspired me to get on the waiting list for the Analogue Pocket (https://www.analogue.co/pocket). The important thing is that the games still hold up really well and I’m looking forward to finding some of the old classics and giving them a go. If you have any suggestions for me please let me know @jonnysamsonite on Twitter.