Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64 remains to this day one of the best 3D platformers ever. The open-ended exploration and perfect controls make the game an absolute joy to play. When I first played the game, I couldn't get enough, so even after finding all 120 stars, I went back to every level and tried to get as many coins as I possiblly could. The game was so good I just couldn't put it down. These days, when I get to the end of a game, I always put it down even if I could play some more just because my time is so limited it seems like I should move on to another game to get a different experience. But that leads me to Super Mario 64 DS. This was the first game I got for the DS, and for one reason or another I only ever got 64 stars (coincidently), despite the fact that there are 150 stars in the game. Well, last night I picked it up again and found out why -- the controls for that game make it practically unplayable. Not having analog control renders the game inaccurate and not much fun. Using the touch controls and the stylus helped, but then that felt a bit loose, and having to use the stylus with my right hand and jump with my left hand was the weirdest feeling. I know there was the thumb pad accessory that came with the original DS, but I'm not sure what happened to it and I don't think it came with the DS Lite. It didn't help much either, if I recall. In any case, playing the DS version made me realize how amazing the controls are for the original Super Mario 64 and how even to this day there hasn't been a more spot-on control scheme for a 3D platformer.

As an aside, Super Mario Galaxy is an awesome game, too. I took the time to get every star with Mario, but I will say that some of the challenges were straight up not fun. A few of the purple coin stars took me 30 or 40 tries (the Luigi coin run comes to mind) and only through my desire to get 120 stars was I able to persevere and finish these challenges. Maybe it is just a harder game in general, but I still feel Super Mario 64 had the perfect balance of skill versus fun-factor.

So while I enjoy my PS3 a lot, the only games I own are Oblivion and Heavenly Sword. I'm looking forward to plenty of upcoming releases, but for the time being I get the most enjoyment out of downloading demos. I've downloaded a number of FPS demos, and yet I've found that I am terrible at almost all of them. What's a good FPS for someone like me who has never played them before? In the past I never found FPSs that attractive, yet all the bells and whistles of the new generation have made the genre more compelling and immersive. I can't play Resistance for more than one minute without dying, while Jericho and the Darkness are a bit more manageable, although I'm bad at those, too. Any suggestions for entering this genre painlessly?

I miss playing videogames. I have been gaming since the late 80s, which means pretty soon I'll have twenty years of gaming under my belt. However, over the last few years my enjoyment of games has been mostly through reading about them through sites like GameSpot and the occasional video game publication. Through five years of college and two majors I was a rather diligent student, which really prevented me from playing all but the biggest games that you just couldn't miss. I remember playing Final Fantasy X my freshman year. It took me six months to beat that game, not because I spent so much time leveling up my characters, but because I would go several weeks between sessions with the game because school was just too busy. Back in middle school when all I had was free time, I imported Final Fantasy VII and spent 70 hours playing a game I couldn't even understand, just because I loved playing so much. In the PS1 era, I played practically any RPG that came out, no matter how second-rate it was, because I just thought they were so fun. Beyond the Beyond, anyone? Ah, the carefree days of my youth.

Now that I'm in my second year of medical school and hoping to procure a neurosurgical residency in the next couple of years, I feel that my future of playing games has inexorably taken a turn for the worse. Between taking care of myself, eating right, exercising, and studying endlessly to prepare myself for the boards in April, there just isn't that much time left to actually sit down and play games. Instead, when I have a few minutes I mostly just read about the latest developments in the gaming industry, follow games I think would be fun but have no intention of ever playing, and figure out a way to prioritize my time when the rare game that I must absolutely play comes out. I track the progress of all sorts of games, yet the chances of me playing the vast majority of them are slim-to-none. I suppose you have to make sacrifices when growing up, but I never consciously considered giving up games. It just sort of happened as my responsibilities grew. I would definitely still consider myself a gamer, but I'm not nearly as hardcore as some of the other GameSpot members who make their own video reviews all the time and seem to play an endless succession of games.

I'm a supporter of Sony and Nintendo, yet my collection of games this generation is paltry at best. I own one PS3 game that I've barely touched (Oblivion) and it's not even originally for the PS3. My Wii is waiting anxiously for Super Mario Galaxy, while the DS pretty much just runs Phoenix Wright titles these days. And Okami just sits there, beckoning for me to finish off the PS2 with the swan song it deserves. Thankfully I never got into MMORPGs, because frankly I just wouldn't have pulled the grades that got me into medical school in the first place if I'd become addicted to the fantasy worlds that so many others seem to enjoy.

The recent Soapbox article about nostalgia really got me thinking about how much I enjoyed playing games as a kid. Going to Blockbuster to rent an NES game, blowing on the dusty cartridge a few times, and then playing the next generic platformer was an absolute blast. I mean, could anybody honestly consider Kid Klown in Night Mayor World on the NES to be a good game today? Or how about Mickey Mouse Land of Illusion on the Game Gear? But back then I simply loved playing anything I could get my hands on. My education has obviously taken precedence over my desire to play video games, and the career path I'm headed down is going to keep me pretty busy for the next few years to say the least, so I can't really envision a time when I'll be free to play whatever I want. It's kind of sad in a way, but at least I wasn't forced to stop playing cold one day and suffer some kind of acute gaming withdrawal. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I miss playing video games, you know?