Zel-kun’s Words

So, as mentioned in a previous post, I finally bought an X-Box 360, my first current generation system.  It’s sad, being what a gaming nut I am, but honestly… I haven’t been impressed by the games that have been coming out these days.

But X-Box, ironically enough, has impressed me with the games that have been coming out, that I bought one.

Those who know me, know that I think the X-Box is perhaps the worst gaming system to ever curse the world with its existence.  So no one was more shocked than me as I put one in my shopping cart at Fry’s Electronics and wheeled it to one of their one hundred registers (that’s not even an exageration).

I must credit Microsoft in this case, and that is that it learned from each and every one of its mistakes from its previous system.

X-Box:

• No RPG’s
• Terrible controller design
• Faulty hardware that barely used the resources it had
• Giant console twice the size and weight of the other consoles

X-Box 360:

• Some good, solid RPG’s, a particularly good one I’m playing now actually released BY Microsoft
• Comfortable wireless controller that lasts surprisingly long on a single set of AA-Batteries, and you’re able to turn the console on and off with the controller
• Hardware that can sync with computers and many storage devices, able to easily become a multi-media entertainment system, and able to substitute game music for music from your audio files (a personal favorite-feature of mine)
• Smaller design comparable to the other systems

So I’ve been pretty happy with it.  My biggest complaint is it’s inability to adapt to older televisions.  Granted, it’s something of a moot point with my new TV, but it’s still worth mentioning.

I plan on getting the Wi-Fi adapter and joining X-Box live, which my friends and co-workers assure me is well worth it.

We’ll see…

Congratulations Microsoft, you finally did something right.

Zel-kun out.

One of the true tests of a classic is the ability to still be an enjoyable experience years after it’s time.

Since acquiring my PSP, I haven’t really played many new games.  In fact, nearly every game I own is a remake.

I picked up Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth when I was at the EBGames saturday.  Valkyrie Profile is one of my favorite games, and perhaps one of the last Enix titles to be released before the merger with Squaresoft, so it still felt like an Enix title.

While it’s technically a remake, there isn’t any new content.  It’s basically a port that has been remastered to display on a wide screen, with some CGI FMV’s thrown in for good measure.  For someone like myself who was a fan of the original game, it was quite a treat.

VP was revolutionary in terms of story and gameplay.  While it was still turn-based combat, you were able to control all your characters simultaneously and create custom combos.  Each character is associated with a button, and pressing that button triggers the attack, so battle is played out more dynamically without losing the strategy of turn-based combat.

Unlike your typical ’save-the-world’ storyline, or the ‘I’m-too-badass-to-save-the-world’ storyline, VP let you play as a god.  More specifically, the goddess Lenneth Valkyrie (based on Norse Mythology).  Lenneth is something of a psychopomp, only instead of guiding the souls she takes to the afterlife, she trains them to fight in Ragnarok (the Norse apocaplypse).

Instead of the ‘go here, get stopped by obstacle, do dungeon, advance plot, repeat’ scheme, it’s more open-ended.  You meditate to reveal worthy souls and sources of corruption on Midgard (Earth), and you go to witness their final moments and cleanse the corruption.

Time is kept in ‘periods.’  Visiting places in Midgard take up periods.  A typical game has a set amount of periods based on the difficulty mode.  When the periods are up, the final battle takes place.

You can spend your time gathering souls and following the storyline, or simply running through various dungeons.  So if you already played through the game and just want the experience of the fighting and adventure, you can forego most of the plot.

Rendered in fluid 2d graphics, the game aged well since it came out.  Unlike early 3d that looks blocky and primitive, the late-era 2d graphics still look amazing.  Add to that the brilliant orchestrated compositions by Motoi Sakuraba (of Star Ocean fame), and it ends up being a rich experience.

So, if you have the means to either pick up a copy of Valkyrie Profile for PS1, or Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth for the PSP, I highly suggest doing so.

Zel-kun out.

After a lot of hard thinking, I have finally decided to purchase a portable system.  I used to have no use for one, being as any free time I would have I am also near a television or computer, but life on my own with my fiance has changed that.

See, maybe she wants to watch that television sometimes.  Or maybe when I’m dragged out for laundry day or shopping, I might need something to occupy myself.  So now I have need of one.

I am incredibly cheap when it comes to buying something for myself.  Sure I’ll buy something for someone else, but when it comes to me, I tend to just keep that money in an account.  So, Zai decided she’d buy me a Nintendo DS.  And this is why I love that woman.

I left the apartment with every intention of getting a DS.  After an abysmal lunch at the Olive Garden (waitress was slow, didn’t offer us any fresh paremsan, and the food was subpar), we headed to the Best Buy.  When I got there, I couldn’t find any DS games I really wanted to play, other than Zelda.  And even then, I was a little iffy because it was based on WindWaker, not exactly my favorite Zelda.

On the other side of the aisle was the PSP.  I saw about half a dozen games I wanted to play, including a remastered Final Fantasy Tactics (one of my all-time favorites).  I picked up the games and decided to buy a PSP.

They were out of PSP’s, as was the Target, the other Target, and the other Target.  The GameCrazy, EBGames, and Gamestop were also out.  So, five hours after I left, I return home emptyhanded.  Luckily, we could order it online, even if that meant I had to wait.

The PSP arrived Tuesday, the day of a huge blizzard.  It was so bad I crashed at my mother’s house, which was much closer to work.  Even the weather conspired against me.

I was finally able to try out the PSP yesterday, and I was very impressed.  It has a large widescreen with a clear and bright picture.  The last portable device I played was a GameBoy Color, so this blew me away.

It has a nice menu to set up networking and you can connect it to the computer for audio and video files.  In effect, it’s kinda like an iPod.  It’s also the newest game system I own.  It makes my GameCube and PS2 show their age.  Sure, they work as well as they always had, but they’re not sleek or shiny.

It’s funny how that works.

I still plan on getting a DS.  Just not yet…

Zel-kun out.

Its funny…

I bought SaGa Frontier a number of years ago and initially hated it.  But, times being what they were, with no RPG’s on the market and Square making fighting games and shooters for some reason, I pulled it out of its case and gave it another chance.  As I played through it, it actually turned out to be a pretty decent game.  Not terrific, but definitely better than a lot of crap that’s coming out today.

I bought its sequel, SaGa Frontier 2, and it was much better than its predecessor.  I played through it a number of times, and I feel its one of the more underrated RPG’s out there.

So, when I saw Romancing SaGa for the PS2 on the shelf at GameStop, a used copy for only $16.99, I picked it up.

The console RPG market is absolutely barren right now.  Every game is using this ‘active battle’ deal that was first done in Star Ocean.  It was fun the first time, but it has worn so thin by now.  When you try to cross action and turn-based, you end up failing at both most often.  The last good RPG I played was Dragon Quest, and that was more than a year ago.  I played Rogue Galaxy because everyone kept going on about it, and was bored by the third day of playing.

So, Romancing SaGa…

It uses the same system as the previous games, whereas the more you use a particular weapon, the more moves you learn with it.  Abilities and spells take Battle Points (BP), and they regenerate a fixed amount each round.  The amount is determined by some stat I haven’t figured out yet, but its nice when a mage has a powerful magic attack that costs 4 BP, and she regenerates 4 BP each round.  Yes, finally, console RPG’s making mages not suck.

Your stats go up at the end of nearly every battle loosely based on what you did.  For example, the mage might gain a point of INT and a point of WIL after a battle, whereas the swordsman might gain a point of STR and some HP.  There’s a noticeable change in abilities in a reletively short amount of time.

New to the series is the levelling of certain techniques.  You can go to a trainer, and spend points earned winning battles and completing quests to level up an ability.  Say, levelling up Terrology (Earth Magic) from lvl 2 to lvl 3.  This makes the magic more powerful AND cost less.  This can be done with dozens of skills that are used both in an out of battle, such as lockpicking, climbing, jumping, and disarming traps.  The whole thing seems like a Japanese take on the open-ended development systems of D&D.

Speaking of open-ended, this game is about as open-ended as they come.  You essentially start out with a vague goal, and then the world is open to you.  You can go exploring anywhere.  You can customize your team the way you want from adventurers and mercenaries in towns, and you can follow rumors about events and treasures hidden in dungeons.  You can actually piece together bits of legends and deduce where an ancient relic may be located, and search for it.

My one complaint is the challenge level.  I don’t mind a difficult game, but the increase of challenge can be seemingly random.  Enemies occasionally get stronger as you do, so you could be sailing through a dungeon, then suddenly a new random monster appears and kicks your butt.  And if you have the bad fortune of stumbling upon a boss (always optional, one boss I stumbled onto because I disturbed a grave in a catacomb) before you’re supposed to, its all over.  But you can save anywhere, so the best advice is to save often.

So, this game is definitely worthwhile, and lets me know that even in the barren RPG market, there’s still a gem or two to be had.

Zel-kun out.

I finally had the opportunity to play God of War on Sunday.  Yes, the first one, not the second one.  I’m a bit behind the times, so sue me.

Zai’s cousin shipped the game to me, mere days after she had returned to Texas.  She heard I hadn’t played it, and sought to rectify that situation.  She is a woman of her word, and I respect the hell out of that.

So God of War… what can I say about it?  Basically, you’re this guy, Kratos, who is a champion of the gods of Olympus, and you’re given the mission to kill Aries, the god of war.  You have these huge daggers attatched to your arms with chains, and you whip these all over the screen to destroy your enemies.  There are even some enemies that buttons will flash over, and if you hit those buttons in correct timing, you will do very gory things.

I have jammed blades down minotaurs throats, I have ripped the heads off of gorgons, and I have even impaled a hydra on the broken mast of a ship.  I was fighting in the town square of Athens, panicking townsfolk fleeing everywhere.  There’s a giant monster with a mace, and the circle button appears over his head.  I hit it, but accidently grab a citizen, pick him up by his neck, and repeatedly stab him in the chest.  Add to that the fact that every time I swing my daggers around, inevitably some poor saps get caught in the crossfire and die.  Also add that I have seen legions of soldiers and crowds crushed by falling debris, and I come to this conclusion…

This is the most violent game I have ever played.

I have fought zombies in an abandoned mansion in Raccoon City.
I once needed to kill rioting townsfolk, including women and children, when they found out I was from an enemy nation.
With a rotting arm, I beat back undead minions.
I once stood upon the wreckage of a broken world, and squared off against a madman on top of a tower of debris, to save the few people that survived the destruction of the world.
I watched a tyrant systematically murder an entire village and burn it to the ground whilst he laughed.

And at no time did I ever see the sheer scope of violence this game has shown me. But, when I see the storyline, and the epic scale of the battle being waged, the violence seems utterly nessessary, to convey the depth of danger the world is in. And the game does that pretty well, and for that I commend the designers. When I turned the corner and saw a thousand story tall god stomping his feet into an army and seeing millions of arrows bouncing off his flesh, I knew just how difficult the task ahead of me is.

And aside from all the violence, brains are needed. Each monster has a strategy, some utilizing the environment. And there is the occasional puzzle thrown in for good measure. Nothing too difficult, but enough to give my fingers a rest from the constant fighting.

An interesting thing the game does is ‘checkpoints.’ Checkpoints are invisible points between battles and puzzles. When you finish up a group of enemies, new checkpoint. Even between stages in the boss fights. So if you die fighting the final hydra head (as I did), you get to start off at the beginning of the final hyrdra head, instead of starting the whole fight over. This becomes more nessessary when you realize just how quickly you can die.

I jumped, got caught in a gorgon beam, turned to stone, and the impact with the ground killed me. One second, and I go from full health to dead. I’m climbing a wall, and an enemy leaps onto me and pulls me down with him, dead. These checkpoints become invaluable as they start you off at a point minutes before you died, instead of at that savepoint on the other end of town.

So far, it seems to be a very well-designed, challenging, and fun game. My hats off, I look forward to seeing how the game unfolds.

Zel-kun out.

I finished up Fate, tallying up about 12 hours or so in gameplay.  $20 for 12 hours isn’t the best deal in video games, but honestly its one of the better offerings the PC RPG market has given me in quite some time.

And that’s sad.

It was Saturday when I finished it up and decided there was room in the budget for a trip to Best Buy to spend some more money.  I picked up a copy of Keiko Matsui’s Walls of Akendora (jazz-esque instrumental music) and a copy of Silverfall.

The box artwork was standard, skimpy busty red-haired woman on the front with a sword, and the back looked like your typical hack and slash.  I would have put it down except for one thing, it purported to be a world where nature and technology were in conflict with each other, and you had to choose a path.

This intrigued me, reminding me of the game Arcanum, and how great the concept of that world was.  Sadly the game itself failed to achieve the greatness it could have with some reworking (It made my Hall of Shame for that).  It was my hope that Silverfall was the game I thought Arcanum should have been.

I took it home and installed it, half-dreading that it would be yet another failure in the PC RPG market.  I started it up, and after about an hour of fooling around with the character creation and prologue, I was impressed.

The game’s graphics are pretty well done, the shadowing effects and the reflections on the water are really something.  The characters are done with cel-shading, giving to a very unique style.  Its a resource hog when run with max settings, enough to make even my machine’s framerates drop occasionally.  Not often enough to make me drop the settings and lose the visual appeal, though.  I’d say once or twice a gaming session, usually when the game is first starting up.

The technology behind the game is impressive, with a physics engine that makes enemies occasionally fly from the force of a particularly powerful fireball, hit a tree, and slump to the base of it.  When you first start the game, it runs a check and takes you to a webpage to install the most recent patch.  Its a nice change from having to hunt elusive patches down (I’m looking at YOU, Etrom and Neverend).

Sound is so-so.  It serves its purpose.  One of these days, PC games will realize than an expert composer can make an otherwise mediocre game impressive, even the biggest budget PC games have barely serviceable sound.

Plot is okay so far.  It could be improved by more voices and better cinematics, but its not bad.  You can choose quests that align you with nature or technology, influencing your ‘loyalty’ to one or the other (you could be neutral if you wanted, doing both).  And having a certain amount of loyalty enables you to spend your skill points in a special nature or technology tree.  For example, you can have mechanical constructs follow you around, or you can have feral beasts fight for you, et cetera.  This also allows you to wield nature or technology equipment (remarkably powerful mystical stone weapons, or pilots goggles, up to shotguns and rifles).

However, like all good games, there are negatives.  The camera could use some work, and the keys to switch your skills are a bit cumbersome and non-customizable.  The targeting system can be tricky.  And the game, while very fun and action-packed, is a bit on the easy side.  That’s fine for me, it gives me a bit of freedom to pick and choose my equipment for aesthetics, so you can make things slightly more difficult, and have a cool-looking character.

After all, isn’t that what its all about? 

On the flip side, it can be extremely difficult to start off as a melee or ranged fighter.  Keep a stack of potions handy.  It levels out after you gain some appropriate skills and get an ally.

I spent the whole of Sunday and most of Monday playing it, the first game I did so in AGES.  I’m having a lot of fun levelling up and advancing the plot.  So all in all, I’m pretty happy with this new purchase.

Incidentally, I’m one of three people in the country that like it.  Most reviews I’ve read for this game are negative, only one or two above a 4/10, and only one as high as 7/10.  I notice that whenever people don’t like a hack and slash, they compare it to Diablo.  Funny thing, I never really liked Diablo, but looking at Diablo and Diablo 2 reviews, I could only find one or two reviews below 6/10.

I’d give Silverfall a 7/10.  Its good, but not great.  Though admittedly, its the best thing I’ve played for the PC in some time.

Zel-kun out.

No, its not an existential discussion, its a new computer game.

I haven’t been buying much lately, on account of me being broke as hell for various reasons.  But I found myself in a Best Buy, and well, I gotta leave with SOMETHING.

I saw it sitting there, it didn’t look all that impressive, it wasn’t made by a studio I trusted, and I never heard of it.  Not exactly three factors that normally draw me to a game.  But it sat there with its $19.99 price tag, with a tagline on the back, “casual yet immersive play allow the game to be played for fifteen minutes or hours on end.” (I’m paraphrasing here, I don’t remember the exact quote)

Usually, that’s how I play games that aren’t World of Warcraft, in shorter bits when Zai isn’t available to play, so I figured what the hell, I’d give it a shot.  I bought it and took it home, where it sat dormant on my desk for a couple days while I ignored it, watched television, and played World of Warcraft.

Monday rolled around and Zai didn’t have her laptop, so I’d be gaming alone.  I took it out of the box and was surprised that the only thing in the box was a CD in a sleeve.  No fancy manual, no jewel case, not even a little brochure advertising other games.  Just a single CD, not even a DVD.  I installed Fate and braced myself for the suck-fest I was sure would follow.

I was surprised to find levels of suck at an all-time low for a new game.  The interface was a simple point and click (think Diablo), and easy to use.  The graphics, while cartoony, were pretty well done.  I found out why the game could be both casual and immersive, because it made no pretensions.

Lot’s of RPG’s dress up a hack and slash dungeon-crawler with layers of convoluted plot, time-consuming quests, and levels that can take hours on end.

Not Fate.

The plot can be summed up as such:

You’re an adventurer, you’re in this town, this town is at the entrance to a dungeon.  Go in there and fight things, and find cool stuff.

That’s pretty much it.  The dungeon is divided into floors, and each floor takes about ten to fifteen minutes to complete.  Its an easy thing to say, “Hmm, twenty minutes until dinner,” and then load up the game, play one level, and leave.

Its also easy to say, “Hmm, nothing much to do right now,” and play though five or six floors.

The levelling system is simple, you earn points to increase stats.  And from a little experimenting, I’m finding that levelling up magic skills is equally fun to powering through with swords.  And as a kicker, you have a dog that follows you around helping you fight.  And by feeding him different things, you can transform him into various creatures both temporarily and permanently.

I gotta say, after a couple days of playing this, I’m still pretty impressed.  The studio also has another game, Mythos, in production.  If they put the same kinda work into making it, then I’d happily give it a shot.

Zel-kun out.

The last few weeks, I’ve been getting back into World of Warcraft.  It turns out the Burning Crusade expansion really did a lot to re-kindle my enjoyment of the game.  While it didn’t address many issues I had with the game’s first incarnation, it did solve a couple.

1. Money isn’t extremely rare anymore.  The enemies and quest rewards in Outland award exponentially more gold.  This means that its actually feasable for casual players (like myself, who, on a GOOD day, can get in about two hours) to do certain things, such as saving up for that epic mount.

2. The new areas offer dozens of new quests that are soloable, instead of one or two.  This means that rather than riding all over the world trying to do a small amount of work, there are many things to do in a smaller area, meaning that time is spent actually playing the game, rather than travelling.

Anyhow, Zai and I have been questing in Outland, getting cool new loot, and gaining a couple of levels.  We decided it was finally time to get our epic mounts.  This is where Blizzard gets its revenge for just giving Warlocks and Paladins their first mounts.

I walk to my trainer, and tell him I want my epic mount.  After he laughs at me, he tells me to see an armorsmith in the city, and a priest in another.  I visit these two people, both of which want 150 of my hard-earned gold.  That’s not enough for the armorsmith, oh no.  He wants to make my horse’s armor from some of the rarest stuff in the game, including Holy Water from the undead-infested city of Stratholme.

I ask him, “There’s a church in this city.  In fact, its the head church, home of the arch-bishop, likely one of the holiest places in the world.”

“Aye,” he answers.

“Surely I can get some holy water there?”

“Nope.”

“No, really, I’m good friends with them over there, they bless things all the time.  I’ll just walk over there, and get you all the holy water you need.”

“Nope, Stratholme Holy Water.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“Its laced with LSD.”

“Ahhhh.”

Ahem.

Anyhow, last night I tagged along with two level 70 paladins (who slaughtered their way through that place), who were going to Stratholme to farm things, anyway.  We ended up doing a full dead run (only took about 40 minutes!) and got my holy water.

It smells funny.

Now tonight I’ll see what other insane things I need to do for this new horse.

Zel-kun out.

My friend Paul and his wife are having a baby.  Now, as frightening a concept as that is, I wish them the best.  Paul is one of the best guys around, and I’m sure the child will grow up in a loving environment.

This has the unfortunate side-effect of taking up all of Michelle’s (Paul’s wife) time, which means she no longer has time to play World of Warcraft.  This hit home last night when I log on, and find over a hundred in-game mails from her characters.  She was deleting her account, and sending all of her possessions to me.

It was sad, symbolic in a way.  I think of a beneficiary who has the sorrowful task of deciding what to do with a deceased friend’s belongings.

Goodbye Michelle, the Knights of Arenelia will miss you.

Yesterday, I was playing Animal Crossing, an addicting game, for no real reason except to feed my OCD.  I borrowed the game from Paul, after not playing it for four years, and decided to finally finish up some things I was doing in the game at the time.

The game works in real-time, so its funny to return and see your town covered in weeds, and the townsfolk yelling at you for being gone so long.  So I began the mindless tasks of acquiring the golden axe, then proceeded to chop down most of the town’s trees to re-plant them in a neat grid.

As I said, its an OCD paradise in that game.

Anyhow, around 11:00 in the morning, I realized that I was pretty bored.  I needed to play something else.  I had a few games sitting on my computer, of the point-and-click variety that I’m pretty bored with at this point.  They’re good, but I’m just so burned out on them.

I needed a new game.  A new console game.  I put on my coat (even though it was almost 60 degrees), and walked into the Best Buy.  There were a few intriguing games for the DS, and I did consider buying a DS to play them, but my eyesight is bad enough without playing a game and reading text on a one inch screen.

There was Enchanted Arms for the 360, which almost makes me want to buy a 360.  Honestly, with that and a couple others, I’m seriously considering it.  That’s ironic, I used to hate the X-box, but they’re now releasing some very good-looking games.

I want to buy a Wii, but I look at my room, not exactly known for its wide-open spaces, and know that a Wii is an accident waiting to happen in there.

Then there’s the PS3.  Its like the let the boss’ retarded nephew run the company for a bit.  A $600 system.  Seriously, who has that kind of money to spend on the system?  I make a lot more money than I used to, and I STILL can’t justify that price.

So I look at the games being released for the GameCube and PS2, and there’s nothing even remotely interesting out.  There’s war games (not my thing), RPG’s with that active battle-system that I find annoying, all of it is garbage.  Its like the game companies got together and said, “Let there be suck!”

I bought Rogue Galaxy the week before last, which was supposed to be pretty promising.  I played it and thought it was fun.  But my gaming experience quickly turned into a grind-fest, battling hundreds of enemies just so I’d be of adequate level to survive.  The active battle system was surprisingly fluid, albeit annoying with this ‘action gauge.’  Yeah, let’s make your character unable to do anything for 5-10 seconds every few attacks.  That’s a good idea.

So the game is now sitting on my shelf.  Maybe I’ll come back to it one day, but I can’t say for certain.

I saw Dynasty Warriors 5 at the local GameStop, I went out later on to pick it up, but apparently the store closed at 5:00pm.  I blame daylight savings time.

I think I’m coming closer and closer to getting a 360.  And that is a frightening thought.

Zel-kun out.