Professor Layton and the Curious Village

Lost Odyssey

Final Fantasy Crisis Core

Braid

Geometry Wars 2

World of Warcraft

I think the video gaming world is moving way to fast for someone who works full time to keep up with, but I’ll always do my best until the day I die… or find something better to fill the time in this world

First and foremost.

1) Getting ranked in team games on Wc3. This wasn’t too hard since the patch reset. I only had to play around 30 games to do so, but I have a 50%+ winning record, so that makes me happy none-the-less. Here is a pic of this accomplishment

My warcraft rank

2) My second accomplishment was to revisit Diablo 2. It took a little bit to reorient myself to this game. It’s really interesting to realize how much games have improved in terms of user interface as well as graphics (both full motion video and sprite graphics.) Creating games and finding a good group of people is actually kind of hard I realize if you have never played this game. Luckily most of it came back and I was able to level up my Meteorb Sorc to 30 quickly and finish the game on normal. I may play more and try to rock out some better gear but for a revisit, this game was fun. I really hope Diablo 3 stays true to it’s roots while streamlining the game with the many modern advances in terms of interface and accessibility games today have taken on.

“I just came home from a day at work and was getting ready to revisit some of my xbox live arcade games when I noticed something strange.” said the undisclosed victim. “By the time I realized what was done it was too late. I called the help hotline but was put on hold for a very long time. By the time I spoke to someone, there was not much I could do.”

Police have no suspects at this time but warn all gamers that they are not safe and to be weary. We ask that you turn on your Xbox 360 at least once a day before you too realize your loss before it’s too late.

My goals?

1) Get ranked in Random Team Games in Warcraft 3

2) Play Diablo 2 again, beat it online and get at least one character to level 50.

3) Play through both story modes in Wc3 and Starcraft.

Bonus) I may try some battle.net in starcraft, but since it’s THE RTS and I will most likely get stomped on, I may decide to just play story on this one. We’ll see.

Let’s see if I can accomplish all of this without losing all my free time. Wish me luck :)

Also, due to the flooding my PS2 died and my Xbox360 Red-Ringed ::sadface::

Good news though, I now own a PS3!

Anyway, hope to be able to talk more about Brawl, GTA4, and a few other games that I’ve been up to!

The first impression I have of Brawl is that it has a ridiculous number of modes of play. You can do Classic, which is the single player experience from the last game, the new Subspace Embassy mode, Break some targets, home run contests, build a stage, events, challenges, online with friends or random people, multiplayer brawl, with items, without items, all with more stages, music, and characters to unlock. A lot of these modes can be played 2 player which is a great boon to those who have either a brother or sister, or even a girlfriend (or boyfriend) to experience games with!

• Insane amounts of modes. Definite fan service that serves to Nintendo Fans everywhere!

However, it doesn’t take that long after playing to realize that Sakuri, the creator of this game, stripped the game down in terms of gameplay. The game feels slower and, at least on the surface and as far as first impressions do go, less deep. This is better for newer gamers into the foray but it just feels like a step back for those of us who did spend a long time in the old game. If I can tell the difference then hardcore nuts for melee surely can even more, especially those who probably make a lot of money at tournaments. Also, some odd decisions that just hurt this game. They brought back ALL of the characters from the old games, except replaced Mew Two with Lucario, and changed the way some of the core characters played, particularly Falco, and no Dr. Mario?

Friend codes also hurt the gaming experience. Having to imput digits for every single friend you want to play and hoping they imput yours before you can even get a room started is just exhausting. Yet, at least once it is set up it works fairly well with little lag unless someone is on a horrible connection. This is nothing compared to the random battles you play against people, where even their gamer identy (the 5 letter combination that you can input to identify your character gets stripped) as well as any of the myriad of options you can normally choose to play disappear. You are stuck as the nameless with only 2 minute K.O. fest to play, over and over again. You might as well play with the CPU.

• No MewTwo, Dr. Mario, and unwanted changes to existing characters to make them feel too different
• Horrible Online interface - Friendcodes are just downright annoying.
• Stripped and slowed game play. All of the advance tactics are gone, or at least most seem to me missing.
• Random Matches are extremely pointless!

So far these are my initial findings and ramblings. Overall the production values are up there and there is just so much to explore that I have yet to really comment in more depth to any particular mode yet. It might be good to note that I’ve only played enough to unlock two new characters. So I have time to change my thoughts as this game unfolds itself. I’ll be starting Subspace Embessy soon, probably will string my girlfriend along for a two player experience.

Wish me luck!

• Battles are repetitive, and while some have unique goals, they all almost play out with the same strategy.
• The AI is atrocious and do not even try to actually win battles. Often a few attacks to a small army will be enough to make them retreat.
• Suffers from “too many playable characters” syndrome that often force you to just use any characters that has strong area of effect specials or ones that raise heroes. I would assume a poll of the most played heroes would result in pretty much the same character sets.
• Levels that are hard only because you are underleveled for having never died are pointless extensions of gameplay, especially when they are part of the storyline!

I can safely say that this game is somewhat addictive in small bursts. Being portable, I often find I play this game when I am either riding somewhere or waiting for something, and it’s ironic how far I’ve gotten into this game without taking time to reflect on why I am still playing this game. The secret lies in success in small chunks and repetition, much like games of ole. It gives you enough information in the story to play the next chapter which leads to a nice transition from act to act.

The 100 Word or Less Summary:

The general story takes place a year after Final Fantasy XII for the Ps2, and the central characters Vaan and Penelo has fufilled his role as a Sky Pirate by commandeering (stealing actually) his own ship. In doing so he travels to the floating continent of Lemurés above the clouds where he learns to summon monsters using auricite crystals. Throughout 10 chapters he fights his way with his friends and allies in a real time strategy game that has a decent amount of action but not very much challenge and depth.

The gameplay initially feels more advanced then what you expect from a DS game or any Final Fantasy game for that matter. Everything happens in real time and you sometimes control up to 30+ units. At the beginning of a battle you are given mission goals, which can be defeating all enemies on the map or sneaking to a specific spot. You are given a chance to see the units the enemy will have. All units are classified between ranged, melee, and flying units and the entire game revolves around a rock-paper-scissor relationship of which one type defeats another. Ranged dominates flying, flying dominates melee, and melee dominates ranged. In addition all units have a type of element, and each element has another element that it is strong or weak against.

In addition to these attribute types for units, you have levels and are limited by only bringing 5 types total to each battle. Each character commands a troupe of whatever units you summon for them, generally consisting of their own battle type.

For early battles all of this feels very daunting, but after a few chapters you start to realize the game is easier than it looks and has very little depth, at least compared to how much is almost promises.

Once you get the hang of the ds controls, which do a fairly good job at allowing you to micro manage your units (although not a great job), you start to find that any battle that gives you a summoning crystal needs almost 0 micromanaging. Even if you commit suicide, as long as you keep on hero alive you can usually rally and make a comeback as there are very little resources that prevent you from building back your armies. The only mission types that offer a challenge are the ones that have no summoning crystals which means that unless you resurrect your hero with another hero, you will not be able to come back. In theory this sounds like a challenging situation, but generally if you spam area effect attacks and just keep summoning more espers… the AI never adjusts and you win. Unless of course the units are 20 levels ahead of you, to which the only thing you can really do is play even cheaper and send “bombs” (a type of esper that commits suicide once hit to deal a lot of damage) over and over one by one until you clear most units and then run in to win. This… of course… is only effective until you come across units 40 levels ahead of you, which then your only choice is to level rather then even play the fight to begin with.

Luckily, the art style, dialog, and story keeps this game lovable and passable. There are occasional times where the fights are fun, usually in the earlier stages before you unlock stronger weapons and level 3 espers. I am interested in finishing this game, but I am not sure if I have the stamina to get to 100% completion. I’ll keep you updated!

• Pricepoint Makes this game worth it before even playing it.

• Introduction is spotty and difficult as it asks you to do things that you do, but get stuck repeating them over and over again even though you are doing what the game asks.
• Process of gaining new abilities feels a little too slow. Any new player who gets struck before the dodge chant will most likely quit due to its….
• High difficulty. Nay, Early High difficulty. High difficulties are decent as long as you keep it hard towards the end or on extra missions.

I only bought Patapon for it’s pricepoint. Plain and simple. Sure, the idea of a rhythm-based-rts-sidescroller with eyeballs sporting legs and spears sounds enticing in some world on it’s own, really, the game new costs $19.99. You just can’t really beat that.

Although I’ve heard rave reviews about this game, I just did not trust them ever since LocoRoco game out for the system.  Having never played the full game, I can’t really say I hated that game too much, but from the 20 minutes I did play I found it’s cutesy singing appeal to be quite annoying and the entire game felt like an annoying “let’s make this more tenuous then it needs to be” platformer. Ironically, 4+ hours later with Patapon, I have quite a different taste in my mouth.

In early stages you don’t have much to do. Each button correlates to a different type of drum and the only song you are given is a basic move forward song. You play your drum for 4 cycles, and depending on what cycle you play, your patapon troops will sing back to you if it’s a valid song….  Pata-Pata-Pata-Pon….. Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon….. which is  simply the basis of this game. If you can keep the same cycle going for a while without messing up, your patapons will jump into fever, where they, in a very cute way, start chanting in harmony while performing better! To attack, you just change up your cycle to the attack cycle…. Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon……. Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon…..

And this is Patapon. Very simple, very adictive, but very hard and unforgiving for the casual player. You will find yourself backtracking to get better gear or more money to get more numbers in your troops. If a patapon dies, especially if you were lucky enough to purchase a rare-patapon while being unlucky to retrieve their hat (needed to bring them back) then you might as well reset the game so you don’t waste your time rebuilding your troops all over again.

Pon-Pon-Pata-Pon…… Chaka-Chaka-Pata-Pon!

More on this game later!

You may be wondering why I haven’t written anything about anything Playstation 3 related. Well. Clearly it’s because I hate the system!

I jest.

The truth of the matter is that I decided not to get a PS3 at launch, knowing that the system would actually worth buying when it hit a certain amount of milestones. I’ll list them and color code them for your enjoyment.

• Games actually came out for it,  exclusively mind you, particularly (for me) a good RPG, Socom, or a new Tekken. Gran Turismo might be enough to make me purchase this baby as well.
• The price went down. And it went down but I think it may go down again sooner than later.
• They started rolling out their PSP / PS3 features that lay dormant in firmware for what seems like years. Wait. It has been years hasn’t it?
• When Blue-Ray won the war.
• When home and it’s Xbox-Live goodness decided to grace us with it’s meaty presence.

So three out of five reasons ain’t bad. Maybe I should finally get myself one? Nah. I’ll wait for at least a decent game to come out that I look forward to. Then I’ll go back and play the few that looked decent that I missed, particulary Drakes Fortune and Jak and Dexter.