Whew, a lot's happened since last post. A friend gave me a box with three classic systems and a shit ton of games, I made some odd impulse buys, and... crap I hate it when I can't come up with three things.
A co-worker of mine heard that I collected games and told me he had some old stuff that I could have if I wanted it. Of course I said yes, but some time went by and I forgot about it. A while later I was coming out of work late (stupid work) and he was still waiting in the parking lot with the stuff. So that was cool of him on two counts. He hands me this box and in it is a NES, SNES, Genisis, 32X, controllers, cables, and a crap load of games. I did NOT expect him to have that many games. Rather than explain everything here you can just watch the video.
-video upcoming-
I haven't gotten the NES to work yet but the Genesis does. I've played a few games, most of which suck. I'll let you know when I get everything shiny and I've tried all the games.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Lost and Dissasembled
In this installment of "How I Waste My Time and Money" we talk about modern classics of the Marvel Comics Universe and mainstream television, Oh the HUMANITY!!!
I saw the finale of Lost. I'm just glad I didn't spend the last six years waiting for that. I started watching the show on Hulu back around the beginning of the year and finished season five just in time for season six to start in February. It wasn't a bad ending per say. It just left to many things unanswered; answers I'd been waiting for from the beginning of the show. The final big reveal only has to do with season six, not the rest of the show, and when you find out what has been going all all season it's a big WTF moment. Frustrating.
On a more positive note I picked up the TPB of Avengers: Disassembled. This story is supposed to be the beginning of all the major Marvel Universe events that took place over the last seven years, culminating with the Siege storyline that just came out. I had heard that this was a great story and I was not disappointed. I'm not really a big Avengers fan. I know most of the characters but as a team I wasn't really aware of their backstory. My lack of history with the franchise didn't matter, it turned out to be the best comic I've read in a long while. This book starts off with a bang and the shit just doesn't stop hitting the fan until the last page. It sets up the events in the reality-altering House of M storyline which is next on my list. I'll let you know how it is.
I saw the finale of Lost. I'm just glad I didn't spend the last six years waiting for that. I started watching the show on Hulu back around the beginning of the year and finished season five just in time for season six to start in February. It wasn't a bad ending per say. It just left to many things unanswered; answers I'd been waiting for from the beginning of the show. The final big reveal only has to do with season six, not the rest of the show, and when you find out what has been going all all season it's a big WTF moment. Frustrating.
On a more positive note I picked up the TPB of Avengers: Disassembled. This story is supposed to be the beginning of all the major Marvel Universe events that took place over the last seven years, culminating with the Siege storyline that just came out. I had heard that this was a great story and I was not disappointed. I'm not really a big Avengers fan. I know most of the characters but as a team I wasn't really aware of their backstory. My lack of history with the franchise didn't matter, it turned out to be the best comic I've read in a long while. This book starts off with a bang and the shit just doesn't stop hitting the fan until the last page. It sets up the events in the reality-altering House of M storyline which is next on my list. I'll let you know how it is.
Tetris Attacks My Wallet
Went to Play N Trade the other day to satisfy my hunger for old-ass games. In The Human Animal Desmond Morris says that people collect things to satisfy an innate instinct to hunt. I'll buy that. Haha, pun! Anyway, PNT had just received a wealth of trade-ins and were fully stocked in the awesome classics department. I picked up Tetris Attack for the SNES and Crimson Skies for the Xbox.
Crimson Skies is the first game for the original Xbox that I've acquired. A while ago I made a short list of titles that I would consider buying. I looked for titles that I felt were icons of the system, highly acclaimed, and held at least some game play appeal (I didn't want to just keep them on the shelf after all). Also I wanted to make sure they were known for working well on the 360 (since I don't have an actual Xbox). The list was short primarily because like the current generation, the last one saw most AAA titles come out for both Xbox and PS2. Since the PS2 is my primary system for that generation (again, I don't even have an Xbox) It makes sense to me to buy dual system games for the PS2. Here are a few notable titles from my wish list:
Jade Empire
Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2
... um actually that's it. I told you it was a short list.
Crimson Skies is pretty fun. For about and hour. The air combat is fun but you follow a fairly linear set of missions, and they degenerate into bullshit fairly quickly.
Tetris Attack on the other hand is a true classic. I wasn't really aware of it as a quality title until recently when I was looking over a SNES top 100 list on the net. The authors were hailing it as one of the best puzzle games on the system, so when I saw it at PNT I gave it a chance, despite the $15 price tag. The game play is solid. It's a match-three game like Bejeweled, but your moves don't have to result in a match, so there is a lot more strategy involved as you set up big combos. On top of that there are a crap load of modes and even tutorials, which was pretty unheard of back then. My questions is, how is it they got to call it Tetris Attack when it had nothing to do with Tetris?
The best part of the game is the multiplayer. I say this for one big reason: MY WIFE WILL PLAY THIS WITH ME. In case you don't know my wife let me assure you this is huge. She'll play games every once in a while but her attention span for them is like my attention span for everything else. After about 15 minutes she's had enough. I got her to play Tetris Attack with me... FOR OVER 2 HOURS! That's right, 120 whole minutes. Amazing.
It's not surprising that the game is so good. It came out in 1996, the end of the system's life cycle, and was made by a first party developer. The developer, Inteligent Systems also programed Super Metroid, and were the developers behind the Fire Emblem series.
On a side note, apparently someone had come in to PNT a few days before me and traded in their N64 and all their games which included pretty much every good game for the system. It was very hard for me not to drop the cash and walk out with it all. Maybe next week.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Impressions: Final Fantasy XIII: Part 4: Finally Finished
With story mode anyway. Story mode... not sure why I called it that, but now that I think about it, it makes sense. FF13 is two games. First you play through the linear story going from chapters 1 to 13, and after you beat it you get to play the second game. You can play the "other game" a little bit in chapter 11 but you aren't really supposed to. What you are supposed to do is wait until after the credits have rolled, and only then can you play what sometimes seems like the REAL Final Fantasy.
I knew from the beginning that you could continue playing after defeating the final boss. I knew this because the strategy guide told me from the very beginning. It's authors went out of their way to tell me not to bother power leveling my characters or items until "much later in the game" (Chapter 11). Once I got to "much later in the game" they encouraged me to quickly return to the main plot. It's not until after you beat the game that you are supposed to do the side quests.
Why wait? Because the final level of the crystarium isn't unlocked until after you beat the last boss. I knew this, but I was under the impression that the game just continues after the credits. I thought it would let you keep on running around doing shit and explain it as, "you beat the evil boss and your reward is to run around Pulse killing shit." This isn't the case however. After the credits you are asked if you want to save your game. When you do, you are transported to a save point just before the last boss, and it's like you never fought him! There's nothing wrong with this I guess, it's just so ass-backward. Why did they do it that way? Maybe they wanted you to be only so powerful for the last fight. It's a little jarring that's all.
Anyway the game is great. Not GREAT great, just regular. I've had fun with it and I'm sure I'll put just as much more time into it as I already have.
I knew from the beginning that you could continue playing after defeating the final boss. I knew this because the strategy guide told me from the very beginning. It's authors went out of their way to tell me not to bother power leveling my characters or items until "much later in the game" (Chapter 11). Once I got to "much later in the game" they encouraged me to quickly return to the main plot. It's not until after you beat the game that you are supposed to do the side quests.
Why wait? Because the final level of the crystarium isn't unlocked until after you beat the last boss. I knew this, but I was under the impression that the game just continues after the credits. I thought it would let you keep on running around doing shit and explain it as, "you beat the evil boss and your reward is to run around Pulse killing shit." This isn't the case however. After the credits you are asked if you want to save your game. When you do, you are transported to a save point just before the last boss, and it's like you never fought him! There's nothing wrong with this I guess, it's just so ass-backward. Why did they do it that way? Maybe they wanted you to be only so powerful for the last fight. It's a little jarring that's all.
Anyway the game is great. Not GREAT great, just regular. I've had fun with it and I'm sure I'll put just as much more time into it as I already have.
Thursday, April 22, 2010
2010 Triangle Game Conference
For the last couple of years there has been a gaming conference here in the Triangle area (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) aptly named the Triangle Game Conference. It's put on by my school Wake Technical Community College (where I'm studying game design) and some of the local game companies like Insomniac and Epic. Not many people know this but this area of North Carolina is home to more than 40 game or simulation companies.
I meant to go in previous years but was to busy. This year however I had a chance to go. I was impressed with the size of the conference. It's no E3 or GDC by any means but for only being around for 3 years I think it's doing quite well. I think what sets this conference apart is its focus on students. All of the seminars held throughout the two days were aimed at the burgeoning designer/programmer/artist. Most of the attendees were students which initially surprised me but makes sense since its put on by Wake Tech and there are a lot of colleges in the area (NC State has a top rate computer science department, so I've heard).
I only went for the second day but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well. The best seminars I attended were given by writers. Writing is one of the avenues I'm looking at for getting into the industry so they were relevant to me. But I found that writers also make the most engrossing speakers (duh). On the other hand I should have known better than to expect to get anything out of a 50 minute seminar on advanced physics engines.
I meant to go in previous years but was to busy. This year however I had a chance to go. I was impressed with the size of the conference. It's no E3 or GDC by any means but for only being around for 3 years I think it's doing quite well. I think what sets this conference apart is its focus on students. All of the seminars held throughout the two days were aimed at the burgeoning designer/programmer/artist. Most of the attendees were students which initially surprised me but makes sense since its put on by Wake Tech and there are a lot of colleges in the area (NC State has a top rate computer science department, so I've heard).
I only went for the second day but I had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well. The best seminars I attended were given by writers. Writing is one of the avenues I'm looking at for getting into the industry so they were relevant to me. But I found that writers also make the most engrossing speakers (duh). On the other hand I should have known better than to expect to get anything out of a 50 minute seminar on advanced physics engines.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
The Suck of Anchorage
So I finished Operation: Anchorage. It started off as a fast moving diversion, but the ride was too short and the scenery along the way wasn't that great. Things went down hill when I realized I had missed one of the intel items and upon walking all the way back to get it I realized it was in a section of the map I couldn't get back to. It let me go back to the long section right after it so that I wasted 10 min walking through it, but no, not the section I needed to get to. Why didn't they block off all the past sections so I wouldn't waste my time? Or better yet, not block off sections at all? There was no reason to do it in the first place. Anyway, being the tight-ass completionist that I am, I had to revert to a previous save and wasted yet another hour.
After the opening part of the Anchorage simulation you have all your guns taken from you and you have to requisition equipment kits as if you were playing Battlefield or something. Why??? Carrying a variety of weapons is one of the things that makes Fallout such a fun game! None of the loadouts includes the coolest weapon in O:A, the Gauss rifle. You can get the rifle but only if you pass a speech test which I failed because I was only level 4. Why would you make an expansion with only one interesting new weapon, and then make it really hard to get? I should get to play with it the whole time! That's what I paid five dollars for!!! Stupid.
The coolest part is that you put together a squad of AI companions from a list of the usual soldier archetypes, a mister gutsy, or a sentry bot. I picked the sentry bot. This is cool until you realize that Fallout 3's weakest point is its piss-poor companion AI. You have no control over your team. You tell them when to attack and they do it until the mission is done. They kill things well enough, almost too well. The game is so easy I could have gone without them; there are health and ammo refills all over the place.
It didn't actually get hard until the end when you fight the Chinese general.
**Kinda Spoiler Alert**
The last part of the simulation is a raid against the Chinese stronghold. You run in to this last area together with a few U.S. soldiers in power armor (who's presence makes the game even easier) and in front of you is this general and some elite Chinese soldiers. You exchange some meaningless dialog and then the general attacks you, head on, with a sword. Well hes going to have a hard time against my gun! No, it turns out he's got more hit points than a whole pack of deathclaws. So I start shooting him but I don't have a lot of action points so I'm forced to fire outside of V.A.T.S.. I realize I'm taking a lot of damage but it doesn't look like he's hitting me. Suddenly I'm dead. I figure that maybe the Chinese soldiers are shooting me but when I target them they are green (friendly). I finally realize that it's my own fucking men shooting me! As I attempt to shoot the general they keep running through my line of fire, and when they get hit they turn on me! What kind of STUPIDMOTHERFUCKINGSHIT is that!? WHY ARE THEY EVEN THERE!?!? The Chinese soldiers aren't shooting at me so its not like they are protecting me. The whole thing is just to create the illusion of a battle. Sorry, but the illusion was shattered when a hand full of frag grenades failed to scratch the tiny oriental man who's only protection was a cotton uniform!! In order to beat it I had to run in circles around the battlefield so that the general couldn't hit me, waiting for my AP to recover so I could shoot him in V.A.T.S., so as not to accidentally hit any of my own men. If I were to summarize the experience it would be: Not. Fun. At. All.
Basically Operation: Anchorage takes all the things that makes Fallout 3 great and trows them out while accentuating the few crappy parts. If you think about it, an expansion where you get to go back and fight one of the pivotal battles of the war that destroyed the world should have been Amazing! Instead it's just a big disappointment. Just to make up for it I blew up Megaton three or four times. Awesome. Every. Time.
I'm taking a Fallout break and going back to Final Fantasy 13 for a while.
After the opening part of the Anchorage simulation you have all your guns taken from you and you have to requisition equipment kits as if you were playing Battlefield or something. Why??? Carrying a variety of weapons is one of the things that makes Fallout such a fun game! None of the loadouts includes the coolest weapon in O:A, the Gauss rifle. You can get the rifle but only if you pass a speech test which I failed because I was only level 4. Why would you make an expansion with only one interesting new weapon, and then make it really hard to get? I should get to play with it the whole time! That's what I paid five dollars for!!! Stupid.
The coolest part is that you put together a squad of AI companions from a list of the usual soldier archetypes, a mister gutsy, or a sentry bot. I picked the sentry bot. This is cool until you realize that Fallout 3's weakest point is its piss-poor companion AI. You have no control over your team. You tell them when to attack and they do it until the mission is done. They kill things well enough, almost too well. The game is so easy I could have gone without them; there are health and ammo refills all over the place.
It didn't actually get hard until the end when you fight the Chinese general.
**Kinda Spoiler Alert**
The last part of the simulation is a raid against the Chinese stronghold. You run in to this last area together with a few U.S. soldiers in power armor (who's presence makes the game even easier) and in front of you is this general and some elite Chinese soldiers. You exchange some meaningless dialog and then the general attacks you, head on, with a sword. Well hes going to have a hard time against my gun! No, it turns out he's got more hit points than a whole pack of deathclaws. So I start shooting him but I don't have a lot of action points so I'm forced to fire outside of V.A.T.S.. I realize I'm taking a lot of damage but it doesn't look like he's hitting me. Suddenly I'm dead. I figure that maybe the Chinese soldiers are shooting me but when I target them they are green (friendly). I finally realize that it's my own fucking men shooting me! As I attempt to shoot the general they keep running through my line of fire, and when they get hit they turn on me! What kind of STUPIDMOTHERFUCKINGSHIT is that!? WHY ARE THEY EVEN THERE!?!? The Chinese soldiers aren't shooting at me so its not like they are protecting me. The whole thing is just to create the illusion of a battle. Sorry, but the illusion was shattered when a hand full of frag grenades failed to scratch the tiny oriental man who's only protection was a cotton uniform!! In order to beat it I had to run in circles around the battlefield so that the general couldn't hit me, waiting for my AP to recover so I could shoot him in V.A.T.S., so as not to accidentally hit any of my own men. If I were to summarize the experience it would be: Not. Fun. At. All.
Basically Operation: Anchorage takes all the things that makes Fallout 3 great and trows them out while accentuating the few crappy parts. If you think about it, an expansion where you get to go back and fight one of the pivotal battles of the war that destroyed the world should have been Amazing! Instead it's just a big disappointment. Just to make up for it I blew up Megaton three or four times. Awesome. Every. Time.
I'm taking a Fallout break and going back to Final Fantasy 13 for a while.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
The Guns of Anchorage
Don't remember if I mentioned this but I grabbed two of the expansion packs for Fallout 3; Broken Steel and Operation: Anchorage. It appeared as though all the expansions were part of the weekly discount on XBLA at %50 off. Believing the discount to be temporary I readily added 1000 MS points to my account and picked two. I think it may be a permanent thing though because I checked the next week and they were still at the discounted price. I hadn't yet beaten the main game (I still haven't) so I put in a few hours with my main character who I plan to use for Broken Steel. If you are not aware it is a continuation of the main game, letting you play past the ending and raising the level cap to 30. For Operation: Anchorage I chose to use my evil character, and go strait the the expanded content right away. Making it across the map to get there was challenging at level 2, especially since I was used to playing at level 20+. It was actually refreshing to have a lone raider with an assault rifle be a credible threat and gingerly negotiating such an obstacle was actually fun. I'm at a point with my main character where I'm more or less moving down a checklist tying up loose ends before the last mission. It can be tedious.
Anyway the little bit of Anchorage that I've played has been fun. The whole thing is a simulation, a game within a game. The mechanics are stripped down for a faster moving experience which again is refreshing. you don't have to mess around with item management as much because it's a "game" so you refill your ammo and health at stations along your path. There are intel items to find as well, and grabbing all ten before the end of the simulation grants you a special perk.
I'd really like to get all the achievements for this game but that puts me in a position to have to buy The Pitt. They did that thing that they sometimes do to games with DLC. They added the achievements to the game whether you have the content or not. So you could get all 1000 points from the normal game and still have an annoying 250 keeping you from %100 completion. I guess most people don't care but I'd like to see %100 for certain games and now I have to pay extra for it. I don't really want to play The Pitt either, out of all five of the expansions it seems to be the least interesting. I'm much more interested in Mothership Zeta since it's the most different, and Point Lookout looks cool because I grew up in roughly that geographic area so it would be like playing in my post-apocalyptic back yard. Whee.
Anyway the little bit of Anchorage that I've played has been fun. The whole thing is a simulation, a game within a game. The mechanics are stripped down for a faster moving experience which again is refreshing. you don't have to mess around with item management as much because it's a "game" so you refill your ammo and health at stations along your path. There are intel items to find as well, and grabbing all ten before the end of the simulation grants you a special perk.
I'd really like to get all the achievements for this game but that puts me in a position to have to buy The Pitt. They did that thing that they sometimes do to games with DLC. They added the achievements to the game whether you have the content or not. So you could get all 1000 points from the normal game and still have an annoying 250 keeping you from %100 completion. I guess most people don't care but I'd like to see %100 for certain games and now I have to pay extra for it. I don't really want to play The Pitt either, out of all five of the expansions it seems to be the least interesting. I'm much more interested in Mothership Zeta since it's the most different, and Point Lookout looks cool because I grew up in roughly that geographic area so it would be like playing in my post-apocalyptic back yard. Whee.
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