Rambling on.

Gonna try to ramble another one out.  My brain is feeling less structured lately.

Torchlight

Been playing a lot of Torchlight lately.  It’s a good deal of mindless fun.  It’s not exactly something you can say much about though.  I’ve gotten a few nice unique pieces and I feel awesome as a result.  I finally went ahead and attached some gems to my gear after hoarding many of them for far too long.  The game provides excellent filler.  It’s so easy to just sit at my computer and go play a little Torchlight especially while my wife is playing something on the TV.

Metal Gear Solid

So I’ve got a boss who is kicking my ass.  It’s partly shitty controls and partly just me sucking.  I had him figured out for a bit and got very close several times and died at the last second due to pure stupidity.  Then my frustration just led to harder failing.  I’m sure I’ll be able to go back soon enough and finish him with much of a headache.  The story still intrigues me.  He, this Cyborg Ninja, seems to know me, but I don’t know from where.  I’m not sure if that’s supposed to be me feeling it as the player alone or also as Snake.  Snake does seem a little confused.  I really can’t wait to beat him so all will be revealed.

Half-Minute Hero

I’m in the absolute final hour with this game.  I’ve got 100% on all of the modes.  My Goddess Room is some very health percentage… I’m wanting to think in 95% range.  I really just need to finish up ‘Another Goddess’ to get 100% on Hero 30 and then do some house cleaning on the remaining things for the Goddess Room.  At worst I may need to go do a little more of Princess 30 to get a better average rating.  That may be the pre-req for making certain monsters appear in Hero 300.

Other

My wife is playing Phoenix Wright and enjoying it quite a bit from what I can tell.  She just finished the second trial and I’m anxious to see her move onto the next one.  I’m personally really looking forward to White Knight Chronicles a ridiculous amount at this point.  A blend of FFXI and Monster Hunter is right up my alley.  I’m at least as excited as I was about Demon’s Souls which is a pretty high standard.  I’m really hoping to polish off MGS before that hits.

I’m a legend!

I always feel like I need to gather my thoughts before I start writing.  Of course, that leads to procrastination.  So rather than go another several weeks without posting anything, I’m just gonna jump in and see what I can remember.

Metal Gear Solid

This is a big step.  There are tons of old franchises that I missed out on when I was younger due to too much MMOing, not having a PS1 (N64 instead), and generally not having the money to jump on things that were less interesting at the time.  I keep telling myself I’m gonna catch up and by golly, I’m on the road to it now.  I not only ordered Metal Gear Solid: The Essential Collection, but I actually start playing the first MGS.

-Controls

Hah, controls are awkward.  We forget how good we have it these days.  PS1 was that first bit of publishers working in 3D and trying to figure out not only how it would play and look, but how it would control.  The switching view from overhead to first person is simple enough, but the way the camera pans from top-down to 3rd person when you press against a wall can distort your perspective of where any given direction the pad will go when you release from the wall. During this time they hadn’t figured out what is now the standard – left stick to move, right stick for camera.  Aiming to shoot things while in the top-down is pretty odd.

-Gameplay

The top down is a little too close.  Additionally, when running in a given direction you are sometimes actually standing closer to the side of the screen you’re moving toward which can leave you surprised if something pops up there.  Inventory control is remarkably well done for a game of this era.  I’ve heard people say “enjoy the movie” in response to someone talking about playing any MGS game.  I can definitely see that.  There are little bits of action followed by in-engine cutscenes which can get quite long.  I don’t really think that takes much away though.  What’s really important is the story from what I’ve heard and what I can tell personally.  The story didn’t grab me right off and I had to deal with awkward play for a bit, but since the Revolver Ocelot fight and the following cutscene it seems like things might be picking up.

-Impressions

So far I’m enjoying it.  I’ll probably play it a bit when I’m done typing this all up.  I did have to look up Meryl’s frequency considering the case it came in was different than the original.  I’m anxious to see what happens with the story and I have to admit this generally isn’t my type of game.  Espionage doesn’t get me hot and bothered, but I am enjoying the character development above all.  The game can be quite agitating when you fail the same section several times and have to watch a cutscene  or listen to a lot of radio dialogue before attempting it again, but that’s endemic to that period of gaming.

Half-Minute Hero

I’m making some serious headway toward polishing this one off.  I went back to do Hero 3 and found that I hadn’t actually saved my completion of Hero 300.  Sadness.  I did it again and did far better anyway.  I then finished Hero 3 without too much trouble and even got the ‘Wonderful Hero’ title.  I also got all special titles in Hero 30.  Luckily I found a nice Japanese wiki that I’m using with Google translator to finish of my Goddess Room.  It seems like a much more reasonable task now that I have that as support.  I still haven’t unlocked the “Another Goddess” quest in Hero 30, but I’m sure I’m close.

Other

I played a bit of Mad World, though I’m not sure if I’ve decided to give it a real go or not.  I played it a bit on a whim while waiting for MGS to arrive and with its arrive I’m not sure if I’ve got when is needed to invest.  I played some Little Big Planet with my wife.  We both enjoyed it very much and I think we’ll enjoy playing it over time.  We also did the first episode of Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney for WiiWare.  She seemed to like it well enough and as much as people complain, I think it looks fine on a giant TV.  Steam was having another sale (damn them!!).  They were selling Psychonauts for 2 bucks.  I couldn’t not get it.  It may be a while before I play it, but I’ve heard so much good about the game and didn’t want to miss the chance to get it on the cheap.

As I ramble all of this out it feels like I’ve started too many things and not finished enough.  That’s frustrating coming on the heels of finishing Muramasa and feeling so accomplished.  I guess I should go play some MGS.

Life is busy

I wonder if I’m ever going to get regular about updating again.  Life’s been busy with house buying and all that jazz.  I’ve still gotten in some decent gaming, but between house buying and work I just tend to not post.  So time for a recap.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade

So I kept playing this in tiny chunks which just didn’t work.  I finally just went balls to the wall out of nowhere.  I seriously picked it up one evening with Momohime still around level 20 and by the next day I’d finished the game the first time with Momohime (42) and gotten through Kisuke’s story to the point that he was 36.  The very next day I had finished Kisuke’s (76) first and second ending and gotten Momohime to 99, finished all three of her endings, acquired all blades.  I saved the first last bit of leveling on Kisuke and his final ending until the day after.  All totaled my game game to around 28 hours and I believe a large quantity of that was getting up and walking around while leaving the game on and cleaning the house as well as just running around and doing silly side things in the game.

The game was fun.  It was simple and straight forward as well as being gorgeous.  I could just tune out and sit down to play.  The story started out convoluted but began to make sense and by the time I’d gotten all of the endings that made good sense to me and I think I grasped their importance.  I also found several of them moving which says something about the character attachment even to NPCs.

The Beatles: Rock Band

Played a good bit of this the other night with my wife.  Drums as so fun.  The big story is that my wife’s parents (as well as my mother) were in town to look at the house we were planning to buy.  My mom’s not a stick in the mud, but her parents are.  They just don’t like games, but we managed to get them to play this.  They had a good deal of fun.  Her dad even exclaimed how cool it all was and he was having a heck of a time playing and singing everything.  Definitely a victory on the front of making people of their sort not despise all video games so much.

Half-Minute Hero

I’ve nearly completely finished this one.  I’m not so sure if I’m gonna finish out the Goddess Room or not, but basically all I have left is a few left over levels on Hero 30 (92%) as well as actually finishing Hero 3, which I’m fairly certain I can do without much trouble.  If I feel up to it after that I might try gathering the last bits to get my Goddess Room (80%) finished out completely just to feel good about saying I completed the game.

On the Shelf

Haven’t played nearly enough Bayonetta lately.  I have the feeling that will pick up eventually though.  Currently not a lot going on in gaming.  My backloggery lists a record low number of games on my “Now Playing” list.  I figure by the time I finish up Half-Minute Hero my wife will have grabbed me another PSP game.  Aside from that, I’m really trying to hold off on too much purchasing.  I definitely feel caught up in a very special way after finishing Muramasa.  The influx of games, especially older games, has slowed down.  There’s less to buy even though there’s plenty to catch up on.  With White Knight Chronicles, BioShock 2, and Dante’s Inferno right around the corner I’m sure I’ll get busy again pretty soon, but I feel like in the remainder of January I can actually just catch up on some currently owned games and may tackle something in my Wii collection.

RL vs Gaming

So reality has had a bad habit of getting up in my gaming space lately.  Between work and looking at buying a house I’m just not getting in that much time and honestly there’s less to talk about.  Of course, I always feel that way and use it as justification not to blog, but then when I write it out I’m shocked at how much there was actually to say.  Still, I’ll blame that on my loquaciousness rather than there actually being anything substantive to say.  Perhaps my New Years resolution should’ve been to practice writing more succinctly.

BioShock

So my wife and I finished this in a bit of a marathon session over the last weekend.  We probably did the last half of the game in nearly one sitting.  Overall she just hasn’t given a shit about the game.  Playing it right after Dead Space actually has left me in awe of how bad the pacing really is in that game.  Dead Space was decent pacing with some lag near the end and a decent end boss.  BioShock was terrible pacing in the beginning with a huge surge near the end but a lame final boss.  Also, in discussing Deus Ex tonight I realized just how much BioShock pales in comparison to both that and System Shock 2 in terms of true flexibility.  There’s really not that much variety in how you build your character nor in the gameplay compared to these predecessors.

Anyway, back to the topic.  My wife went from not giving a shit to actually giving many shits (…erm?) about the game and Rapture overall.  She’s currently looking forward to BioShock 2.  While most people are predicting that it can’t possibly live up to the original, I honestly hope it’s better.

Bayonetta

Still chipping away at this.  My wife is at the start of chapter IV I think.  I just finished chapter II and somewhat making a point of not passing her.  I’m also playing it on normal mode just to hold myself back and I have to admit I’m some sort of pussy.  The game kicks my ass on normal and I hear people talking about looking forward to playing it on hard.  There’s not much to say.  What story there might be I’ve yet to encounter in a deep way, though I’m sure some will come and being standard fare.  The gameplay is fun and exciting and sucking so bad has forced me to actually… suck less just to progress.

Half-Minute Hero

This has been what’s really been consuming the majority of my time lately since I have a bit of time when I’m in bed.  I finished Hero 30 and have slowly worked on getting titles and such as I go.  In the meantime I finished EvilLord 30 with all but one level at max rank and 100% completion.  I’ve finished Princess 30 to 100% completion, but hit and miss rankings.  I’m currently working on Knight 30 which is terribly easy, but still good fun.  Hero 30 is at 92% and I’m looking forward to inching the number up and it definite seems best that I decided to leave the min-maxing for the end.

BTW… Quest 29 made me cry.  I think it’s easily the best mission I’ve done so far.  It’s a simple and silly story.  I’m looking for the evil lord’s castle, can’t find it.  People are weird and I meet one chick who goes on a date with me and shows me around, but she’s always protective of a monument in a suspicious way.    Finally she confesses to me that she is actually a monster as are the other people in the village.  She’s in human form to fool me and hide the evil lord’s secret castle.  Spending time with made her decide what she was doing was wrong and she told me to destroy the monument to unveil the castle, but also revert all of the human impostors back to monsters…. including her.  She asks if, even after this, I will consider her a friend forever, even when she can’t talk to me as a semi-mindless zombie-monster.  I said yes.

I destroyed the monument and charged through a village on the way to the castle.  It was populated by monsters.  I killed several and it was noted that there was something odd about the particular one in the back.  “……Grhg….,” said she.  I turned to run rather than slaughter her… but I couldn’t.  I had equipped my Duelist Boots which didn’t allow me to run from battles.  I slaughtered her and in her dying breath she said, “….Li…. ar……”  I was seriously heart broken and horrified at what I’d just done.

I had to play the stage again and rectify the mistake.  Of course, doing so turned some rusty sword into the Hero’s Sword that only someone who’d done what I’d done could wield.  She got to speak to me for brief, final time.  What is it with me and things like this.  I’m moved to tears so easily by such things.

On the Shelf

So my wife’s gonna play Bayonetta here and there as a game where she can turn her brain off and just blow shit up.  We’re done with BioShock and sorta looking for another narrative game.  Twice she’s tried to sit through Deus Ex and failed.  She’s a different type of gamer now and actually suggested it.  Well try picking it up again, which will be even easier because I have it on Steam now.

Gaming evolution

So it seems that I’ve come to a number of decisions about how I play games these days.  My style of play is evolving near constantly and I’m not completely sure I can foresee where it’s going.

20/20 hindsight

I suppose if I look back I may have seen the earliest hints of where my gaming was going with Final Fantasy X. If you wanted to do everything you’d easily spend over 100 hours doing so.  It may have been the fist time I attempted such a thing and actually didn’t have it in me to finish it.  I just ran out of attention span or something.  This wasn’t like just not maxing every character in an RPG to 99.   These were more obtainable goals like getting ultimate weapons and the such.  I’m not sure what appealed to me so much about RPGs when I was younger.  I’m sure there was a bit of the fact that I could only get a handful of games in a given year.  After discovering Final Fantasy VI I was able to spend insane amounts of time playing one game without getting very bored and without trying to make up silly things to do to improve the life of the game.  MMOs (Final Fantasy XI in particular) happened between X and XII.  Final Fantasy XII offered an amazing amount of stuff to do and I still want to go back and do it sometime.  It’s incredibly fun to play and achieve in, but I failed royally to do this.  This went beyond last-dungeon syndrome (where you get to the end and either start a fresh game based on your knowledge or end up abandoning the game all together).  Of course, I was otherwise occupied when XII came out.

-MMOs

Maybe it was MMOs that largely taught me some level of futility, though in an MMO such efforts are less futile since you at least have bragging rights and people to actively show your awesome gear to as well as uses for it other than some arbitrary super boss put in the game just for those who wanted to max things out.  At the same time, MMOs changed my gaming in another way.  They made me miss years of gaming.  They made me miss countless classics and franchises and I’m not in a mode of eternal catch up.

Trophies and Achievements

The idea of achievements  has always been pleasant to my completionist mind.  They let you feel like you’ve really seen all the game can offer.  If you’re bored they add shelf life to the game.  I would’ve loved to have had these as a kid when I would arbitrarily set a limit on a game mechanic just to give myself something new to do.  Even if you’re not bored they can offer a means of getting you to play outside of your box and maybe find out something new about yourself while trying new things in the game.

I got super gung-ho over trophies in World of Warcraft but it bothered me to know that getting them all would be impossible.  When I finally got a PS3 and 360 I relished (and still do) the idea of being able to actually get 100% completion of trophies and feel truly done with all the game has to offer.

-Trophies can wait

As I recently finished Demon’s Souls and Dead Space I certainly wanted all of their trophies.  However, I also have a ton of games rotting on my shelf and still plenty more I want to buy and play.  I was working hard for a while at getting trophies for both games.  The task wasn’t too arduous, but as I was working on the ADS Cannon trophy in Dead Space I started thing how silly it was when I could be playing and finishing Muramasa: The Demon Blade. My fear of forever shelfing a game and not finishing it was turning me into a monster where I needed to complete a game far beyond completion to be satisfied.  This was a mistake.  Trophies should be aimed at lightly and gotten where they can be.  Harder trophies should not be for immediately 2nd, 3rd and 4th play-throughs, but for a time when you really just feel like picking that game up again, or you’re bored and have little else to do in your game life.  This certainly isn’t my case as I have tons of games I want to at least give a cursory run through.

Killing completionism

I don’t know that I need to totally do away with my completionism, but I need to put it way lower on my list when I’m playing.  With Half-Minute Hero I finally caught myself making the game less fun because I was looking for an efficient way to play it rather than a fun one.  It was still fun, but I was certainly hurting the enjoyment for myself by obsessing with the wrong thing.  Being a completionist on my first run through of a game just makes it likely that I’ll stop short of the ending just because I wore myself out.  Often the goals ca be gotten at later.  This is certainly the case for Half-Minute Hero.

Age

I don’t think being older necessarily has any bearing on anything directly.  However, I can afford more games and I’m also interested in a lot of games that I’ve missed.  That is coupled with the fact that I don’t have as much potential time overall to spend gaming.  It’s still quite a lot and I’m so grateful for the amount of time I do have to play, but I definitely have to be more time conscious and budget my gaming time more appropriately.  I think my natural instinct needs to be avoided.  I don’t need to rush through games just to get through with them, but I also need to not spend inordinate amounts of time with anyone game on or near its first run.

“I saw it, but I couldn’t find it.”

Didn’t play much of anything yesterday, but got in some time today even with work and apparently waking up with a subconjunctival hemorrhage in my eye (scary looking).

Bayonetta

This has been an interesting saga.  At first I didn’t give a crap and wondered why such a stupid looking game was getting so much press and hype.  I wrote it off as exploitative silliness.  Well, there was news that it sucked on the PS3.  Having a 360 and no real games on it, I decided to try the demo on the superior console.  I quickly realized that the game wasn’t serious.  It’s almost making fun of itself.  The game plays and controls in an amazing way that is beyond explanation.  You just have to experience it.  So I finished the short demo fairly impressed, but still only slightly on buying side of so-so.

-the wife’s turn

I asked my wife to at least try the demo at some point which she agreed to.  So yesterday (release day) I decided to check out the full video review on GameTrailers.  This made me aware of a great number of other features that I wasn’t aware of.  It also showed some more of the scope of the game and what else there was.  At this point I was pretty much sold.  After having my wife check out the review, I then had her live up to her word and try the demo.  She didn’t exactly have any of her Dead Space style man-gasms, but she did seem to enjoy it quite a bit more than she’d expected.  Of course, that’s about as much as she would let on as she often doesn’t like to “give in” by admitting she liked something I wanted her to try.  Apparently a sore point since with all things (food, games, movies, TV shows) more often than not, she ends up enamored with anything I share with her as long as she gives them a fair trial.

-attempted procurement

She had no problems grabbing the game after this though we hand’t planned on picking it up yet.  She was gonna try to grab it for me and tried to feign some excuse as to why I shouldn’t get it at all… which I can’t recall, but was ridiculously lame and out of character… so I knew what she was planning.  Well, we had to go to Wal-Mart anyway.  They didn’t have it… much like they didn’t have New Super Mario Bros. Wii on release date.  But hell, they had NSMBW the next day (even though they said I was wrong about the street date and it was a day later than when they actually put it on the shelves).  Here Bayonetta actually is the day after release.  They don’t know crap about it.  They can’t seem to look it up on a computer or anything.  Apparently three had been a line at midnight for it as well (glad I wasn’t there).  A stocker guy actually said, “I saw it in a box, but I couldn’t find it.”  Wait… wut?  That makes no sense.  Fine Wally World… you lost some bucks (not that it matters).

-stoled!!!

We picked it up at Target without any trouble.  When we got home with it my wife wanted to play a little more and since I was attempting to mix her a drink I happily obliged.  Problem was, she didn’t want to stop playing once she’d started.  I actually haven’t gotten a shot to play it yet at all.  So now she tells me she wants to play it all on her own.  Looks like I get a separate save file, and much like has been in the past, I can’t get ahead of her.  That’s no big deal.  It just forces me to play a little more paced and when I have a lot of extra game time I can spend it on the other games I have running at the moment.

Half-Minute Hero

So I did play this a bit last night.  I was a bit tired and wanted to feel a little more progress.  Previously I’d abandoned trying to play all branching paths simultaneously.  Now I just said eff it on getting some of the optional titles and such.  Yes, they would be easier to work at while I’m familiar with the level and still on it, but the stagnation probably isn’t worth it.  I just decided to blaze each level, get the story (such that it is), and move on.  It’s certainly a bit more fun this way which makes me wonder why I wasn’t doing this from the start.  I think I’ll actually write a whole separate blog about this issue and what it means to me.  So I believe I’m nearing the end of on of the paths and it’s fairly exciting.  The pace is a little less breakneck on each individual level.  As a rule I take my first run of each level a bit slower.  That being my only run of the level slows down the speed of individual levels but greatly increases the pacing of the story and game overall.  My overall percentage of completion climbs faster and helps me feel like I’m making progress.

I’m sure when it comes down to the last few percentage points I’ll have no trouble going back then and digging in a little deeper.

On the Shelf

I’ve decided in a somewhat official way to shelf a handful of games.  I took the plunge and removed them from my backloggery’s now playing section.  There were quite a few too many titles.  Some weren’t getting enough play, some were taunting me with nothing more important than unfinished trophies.  Those can wait.  I’m feeling a bit liberated honestly.  There are very few things left on there and many of them are subject to my wife’s pacing.  Currently the only games based on my whim are Half-Minute Hero and Muramasa: The Demon Blade.  I’ll probably have much larger doses of those over the next few days.  However, I’m not writing off the possibility that I may start up Dragon Age: Origins or Torchlight.

New focus

So things are still winding back toward work starting up and I’m adjusting priorities.  I’m getting a little more focused play going on now since I can’t spend as much time playing and therefore can’t divide myself across so many games.

Bioshock

Made a little progress in BioShock tonight.  My wife still isn’t feeling it and I feel why she’s not for sure.  Luckily I’m feeling mostly comfortable with the controls now though accuracy is still questionable.  It has at least sped up the pace of the gameplay from that perspective, though it’s not necessarily rushing the narrative along.  I’m thinking we may soon get to some slightly more interesting stuff.  Of course, it’s not having the effect that Dead Space did in alleviating my wife’s propensity to fall asleep to almost anything.  She’s a real trooper though and I think her backloggery is largely to blame for making her want to stick it out hard… not that I’m complaining.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Well, due to some screwy sleep issues I blazed through the rest of episode 3, and halfway through ep. 4 last night/morning.  I finished off ep. 4 this evening.  I had my first experience with actually getting enough penalties to end my game, which was not good considering my previous save was a good ways back in the trial.  For such a brutally linear game this does not add up to fun.  I’ll grant that having a system in place like that does add a good deal of tension to the game and rescues it from being a wild guessing game for anyone who wanted to make it such.  From now on I’ll definitely sweat even more bullets before deciding if I should object to something.

So the game is coming out for WiiWare, though I hear it’s not getting pointer control from the Wiimote in lieu of the stylus.  This seems like a mistake to me, but considering it was originally for GBA, I’m sure it will work just fine.  It may just be a tad slower navigating menus and examining things, but probably no huge loss.  I just wish that if they were going to do something with the Wiimote it would’ve been pointer controls rather than gestures for objections and the such.  In fact, I have the feeling I’ll be a little paranoid about accidentally waggling the Wiimote while playing and pissing off a prosecutor.  Lord knows if I went to so much as scratch my nose playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii I might find myself spin jumping into a pit.

As gimmicky and silly as I confess the controls are, I can see the draw.  And once you’re attached to Phoenix as a character and you get heated in a trial I could totally see having the urge to pull off his now classic “Objection” pointy-thingy.  However, the motion seems like a fantastic way for the overzealous to run TVs.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney (wife note)

Something interesting about the WiiWare edition is that the 5th episode of the first installment will come out at the same time the 3rd installment comes out.  Background time: PW1 was originally on the GBA (2001) and had 4 episodes.  To my knowledge, PW2 and 3 also have 4 episodes each.  The DS port of PW1 came with an extra episode exclusive to the DS.  I’m fairly certain the other two were straight ports.  To make matters worse, instead of one per month the way Japan is doing it (Dec., Jan., Feb.) the US WiiWare releases will be spaced every other month (Jan., Mar., May).  Alongside the release of PW3 in may will be the additional episode 5 for PW1.  WTF are they thinking?  I want the damned thing in sequence.

Basically what’s gonna have to go down is that I’ll have to get PW1 on WiiWare whenever it comes out this month… play with my wife through Ep. 4.  Then, we’ll have to huddle on the DS to play Episode 5.  I’d almost started it tonight, but after reading that bit of info I realized it’s better that I hold off until she catches up to me.  I will be anxiously and eagerly awaiting, and by the time she’s played the first 4 Episodes, so will she.

On the Shelf

–Trophies

So where does all of this leave me?  Well, with work about to take up some time I’ve decided to put trophies on the back burner as much as I’m a whore to them.  Some are going to be ridiculously frustrating and what’s the point of playing games if not for fun?  Sure I’ll come back to them some time for completion sake and because they can be fun to be conquered…. but… I’ve got a lot of other games that need a first run.  I can’t be spending all of my time slaving over trophies that may take months when I could give several games at least a cursory run.  It’s the same reason I’ve practically sworn off RPGs lately.  Jeez, I might play one if I don’t get my panties in a wad about trophies.

–Handheld

With the Phoenix Wright games on hold the DS itself may take a bit of a break and I’ll focus a lot more of my portable attention to Half-Minute Hero.  Of course, each session seems to only allow for a short capsule amount of gameplay I can handle.  It’s fatiguing probably due to the puzzle bits.  PW is also fatiguing, but unlike H-MH which is easy to put down due to its bite-sized nature, PW is saga like and you never want to stop until you’re passing out.  I’ve found that during the day time if I played PW for a long period it literally sapped my brain energy because, like H-MH, it requires a lot of though, but doesn’t allow respite.

I’ve been enjoying the large amounts of portable fun, but maybe cutting it down to one games to focus on might be a good call for the moment.  I expect I can make rapid progress in H-MH if I try.  During the wait for the Optometrist I played an insane amount (nearly sapped my brain into a coma) and made a sickening amount of progress as well.  The rumors around the water cooler suggest a certain person I may or may not be married to may or may not try to grab a game that may or may not be for the PSP, which may or may not be called Patapon. I guess I’ll have to wait and maybe… maybe not… find out.

–Consoles

I suspect Muramasa is about to get a heck of a lot more attention.  My last go at it got me a lot more into the flow and it was great.   I’ve had a decent bit of craving for it lately though that was largely preempted by Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney.  I don’t really have a console game that I’m focused on other than BioShock which is with my wife only.  I have the feeling I can polish off Muramasa to my satisfaction in 10-20 hours.  Heck, I might even finally beat the last level of de Blob afterward…. but I shouldn’t get ahead of myself.

–PC

So my computer has been treated to a clean install of Vista.  Now I can finally feel somewhat comfortable delving deep into Dragon Age: Origins. I find it likely that I might.  Of course, there’s a disc check that I may be able to circumvent, but otherwise my wife and I will have to share.  She’s quite interested, but even after my installation she was thwarted by some particular problems on her PC.  There was some freezing problem where the game pauses and cannot be unpaused.   It happened to me once too.  I think it may be easily rectified when I look into it.  The other problem may be harder.  Her scroll wheel doesn’t seem to work in many games.  It was a mere annoyance with Oblivion but it will be crippling with the way DA:O works.  When I get a chance I’ll try hard to find a solution, which may be more forthcoming considering the relative newness of the game.  I just hope she hasn’t given up by the time I do so.

Oops, I did it again.

Oh lord, I went way too long without updating again and that means there’s going to be way more than I can cover. First thing’s first.

Dead Space: Extraction

So my wife and I finished this 2 days ago now.  All of those things I said about pacing and how sad it would be if it only hit its stride half-way through.  I (and apparently the devs) missed the mark by a wide margin.  The game was a single chapter from completion.  Just 10 short chapters and only the last 3-4 really got any pace to them.  For a game that I shat all over, I was far sadder than I should’ve been for it to be over.  My wife and I were both at a loss.  I guess now there’s just the wait for Dead Space 2.

Dead Space

Been working on trophies.  Of course I came up against the ADS cannon bit which I’ve gotten roughly close to achieving a few times, but no cigar.  I’ll hit it here and there until I get it.  I certainly thing it will be a harder trophy to acquire than even finishing the game on Impossible mode.

Half-Minute Hero

My urge to play my way is not conducive the way game wants to be played.  The path for Hero 30 keeps splitting in multiple directions and I try to follow the first, then second, etc. installment of each path so as to be caught up with gear.  I’m realize that this is a terrible approach.  There are very independent story-lines playing out and this approach increases the difficulty of following them.  I finally gave up on it and I think I’ll plow through to the end of each.  Thus far, even without the top most gear, it’s pretty simple to get most of the special titles.  It’s also more fun to let go, so I probably will.  If I have trouble with a title, I’ll come clean it up later rather than sooner.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

I really need to start this up when I have more time to play.  My PSP and DS are my night-time, in bed games (though I did play a good deal of PSP today while waiting on the Optometrist for my wife).  The current episode has now been split into 3-4 sessions.  I realize it’s almost ludicrous to do an entire episode in one go (the way I did the 2nd episode over 3-4 hours), but I really should be giving a bit more time per session to hold the continuity together in my head.  Also, the fact that I’m exhausted when I play tends to make me less logical and I either take too long to think about where to look for a clue, or have trouble cross-examining witnesses.  Still loving the game though.  It’s an amazing game that shouldn’t interest me but does so greatly.

Bioshock

Grabbed this half on a whim after being shocked about the ending of Dead Space: Extraction happening so abruptly.  The game starts somewhat slowly and my wife hasn’t taken to it quite yet.  I agree that the pacing doesn’t get you in it as fast as I would like and much slow than many games I’ve played.  I think Dead Space had far better pacing, but having played Bioshock before, I know that ultimately it has a richer story with more surprises that aren’t quite as predictable and cliché.  The aid how slow the game is taking off is my inability to play it.  I grabbed it on PS3 for simplicity sake instead of running cables to my TV (from the PC) nightly.  Well, there’s no option for inverting the X-axis.  I guess years of playing third person MMOs and having just played Dead Space has made it virtually impossible for me to adjust to non-inverted camera controls.  The first several sessions were painful, but they are getting better.

My gross motor control is there, but it’s not instinctive.  I have to think too long to do anything and it vastly slows the gameplay.  To exacerbate this I have nearly no fine motor control for it non-inverted.  This make it nearly impossible to aim accurately.  I can only roughly aim at a target and during any frenzied firefight I do absolutely terribly.  I’m looking forward to a point where the game picks up a bit.  Hopefully by the end my wife will see some of its charm and look forward to the sequel that is nearly upon us.  Of course I don’t expect her to love this as much as Dead Space and I admit I don’t either but having seen it through, I know it’s a well crafted game.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade

This has been the game that I’ve neglected a lot after the first go.  I finally got in a good bit of play mostly today and a little over the past days.  I finally get how forging works and I’m starting to figure out cooking a bit.  This makes the game much more enjoyable.  I always feel like I’m one level away from a new blade and it’s usually true.  Each new blade is quite exciting.  The story is starting to calm down and I’m able to pick a bit more of it up with the new pacing.  The control is still so intuitive.  I was able to pick it up after a long hiatus and still hold my own.  A cursory glance back at the controls filled in the gaps in moments and I feel very comfortable in battles once again with basically zero effort.

Dragon Age: Origins

Nothing new really.  This game taunts me to come play it.  I’m very interest.  I decided to coax my wife into checking out a bit of it.  It not that she was disinterested, but rather that she’s afraid of loving it too much.  Well, that was indeed the case.  She loved character creation which is the best combination of robust and simple either of us has ever seen.  She also seemed to be impress by the myriad of ways you could respond to situations.  This was something that caught me off guard as well.  Hearing about it and actually experiencing it are very different things and this feature draws you in a ton.  After showing her a bit of a human noble character she loved seeing the dog.  Pets are the path to her heart.  In the end she asked me to install it on her computer.  I’d also like to start playing it a good deal, but I’m pretty sure I’m about to reformat my HDD, so I’m not sure if I should start it up just yet.  Not sure if I’ll be able to help myself though.

When we both played way too many MMOs we’d always talk about what we’d like as an MMO but offline.  Oblivion gets half there.  Dragon Age: Origins actually gets quite a bit close in interface and all.  If there were an option for co-op in some way then the game would be beyond perfect.

Damnit I’m starting to love DS: E

Dead Space: Extraction

So we played a bit more of the game tonight and despite all of the terrible flaws, the game is growing on me hard.  The story is  picking up significantly and I actually hope it’s not too near the end for my own playing sake and for the fact that the developers would’ve screwed the pooch royally to make a game not hit its stride until half or more through.  One primary thing that’s fantastic is the switching of protagonists.  Sure the intro chapter had a different PoV than the subsequent chapters, but it wasn’t until chapter 7 before we saw more of this and then even more in chapter 8.  This is brilliant and does a lot to break up the stagnation.  Also, the narrative finally got interesting.  The characters finally have something interesting going on rather than just tons of us shooting shit because some badness is happening.

Oddly enough, there’s far more shooting now on top of the better story aspects and changing perspectives.  The game did quite a 180 it seems.  Why so late though?  Either way, I’m finding myself more drawn into the game now.  I just wish the devs had thought more about pacing for the earlier parts to draw the player in and obfuscate the many horrible mechanics and lackluster graphics.

Of course, this reminds me of yet another gripe, which is sort of out of character considering how much I’m enjoying the game now.  Early in the game there was an abundance of profanity and there was even a somewhat superfluous nude scene.  It’s like this game is trying to scream, “Hey!! I’m a game for adults on the Wii!!”  You don’t need lots of ‘fucks’ and ’shits’ to get that across.  It seems even more stark considering how much it’s dropped off now.

I love nudity and language in games.  I think they have every right to be there and need to be there… when it’s appropriate.  It doesn’t need to be edgy stuff for edgy sake.  That cheapens it and if anyone wanted to something to attack, it’s harder to defend when it’s obviously gratuitous.

Dead Space

I’m making a bit of slow progress with trophies.  I’m finding out that many of the other weapons are terrible.  I used the Plasma Cutter and Ripper almost exclusively in my first run.  The Contact Beam is by far the worst thing I’ve worked with and I’m looking forward to being done with it.  You’d never think getting 30 kills with a weapon would be so terrible, but it’s pretty bad with that.  I finished the Pulse Rifle, which was better all charged up, but I dislike the gun-ness of it in a game where you’re mostly using tools of the trade rather than just making the game another generic space marine shooter type.

Muramasa: The Demon Blade

Picked this up on a whim when the wife was getting sleepy playing Dead Space: Extraction and I wasn’t feeling like picking Dead Space back up.  Haven’t it played it since my first foray.  It’s a good deal of fun and I’m anxious to play enough more that I actually know how most of the game’s mechanics work.  I’m looking forward to doing more with sword forging and such.  I didn’t remember all of the controls and may have to look some up.

Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

I’m pretty much resigned to the fact that I won’t be able to find this nor the 2nd or 3rd installments in stores.  I guess I’m just going to roll with the emulation for now and if I ever get a chance I’ll pick it up for cheap somewhere since I have some sort of compulsion toward owning games.  So  played the second episode.  I actually made a horrid mistake of picking this up after playing Half-Minute Hero and becoming fatigued.  I planned to just a play a small bit and go to bed.  It was 2-3 hours later before I actually got the chance to sleep.  My heart was pounding and I was so in the moment.  I wanted to get to the bottom of things and I kept getting thwarted by the prosecution.  This game should not be as fun as it is, but god I love it so much.

Half-Minute Hero

It seems I’ve only ever got the stamina to make very small amounts of progress in this game at a time.  I’ll play maybe two or three missions before wanting to put it down.  It’s so strange that I’m loving the crap out of it while playing, but feel compelled to put it down so quickly.  It was obviously designed with this type of play in mind and it blows my mind to hear about people who are playing it hardcore and returning it for a trade-in a week later.  I’ve made astoundingly little progress in the big picture, but the game always makes me feel like I’m doing well enough.

DS: E still sucks… but I like it… or something

Dead Space: Extraction

So my wife and I played a bit more of this today.  Before I rip into it any more I’m gonna say there’s something sickeningly enjoyable about it.  My wife blew off other plans to play just one more chapter today.  It’s still far from a terrific game.   A specific nag that I forgot to mention yesterday is how kinesis ties in with everything.  Like in many on-rails shooters, you are often thrown extremely brief moments to grab specific items as they flash out of the corner of your eye.  As a result you feel like you must grab everything all of the time.  This leads to both my wife and I constantly hammering the kinesis button when not in combat and attempting to grab anything that looks remotely shiny or different.  The sound and action of this spam kinesis distracts heavily from any mood that might be set by the game and we often find ourselves missing dialogue that is going on nearly constantly as a result.

Another gripe are the audio logs.  They play through the Wiimote.  It’s a cool concept, but it’s often quite difficult to hear them through the Wiimote without holding the speaker (also your gun that needs to be aiming at the screen to grab/shoot things) to your ear.  To add insult, only the person that grabs it gets the audio in their Wiimote so we’re constantly trying to hold it between our two ears if we grab one and if there’s actions happening on the screen at the same time we usually don’t hear most of it.

Most of the text logs are just rehashes of text logs from the original game.  Even worse, some of them are originals that were broken up over several logs over several chapters.  Ugh.

All that said, somehow we’re enjoying the game a lot.  The last three chapters were largely enjoyable and the ends o the chapters tend to leave you hanging so you want to press on.  You find yourself caring about the characters you’re with and there are increasing bits that give throwback to the original game and make you care.  You end up in some of the same locations and it’s cool to retrace (or pre-trace) your steps and see other characters from different points of view.

Characters are great in the game.  Each character looks individual in a way that I honestly can’t recall having seen in a game in a long time.  Even in games that allow for a lot of customization for your own character and have robust systems that could be used to make a variety of different looks, they just never hit it as well as this game does.  There’s just something about faces that’s incredibly unique and meeting new people, even if they are red shirts, is great.

The boss we just came up against was needlessly frustrating and we died several times.  It wasn’t explanatory quickly enough on the first run and it took us a few deaths to get the flow.  Of course, when you come back you return with half health.  Even on easy the enemy isn’t forgiving.  You have to hit an incredibly small moving target repeatedly to avoid being hit and before we managed to succeed in the 3 stage battle, I was very close to just turning the Wii off and saying to hell with it.

I can’t explain the draw of the game, but there is some.  Despite all of the horror, there’s something that makes you want to play it, though I doubt this would be the case if I was flying solo.