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SuperWes
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SuperWes
Updated the banners, but not his title
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Joined: 07 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 12:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shapermc wrote:
Trackmania is GOTY!

This is an OK response, but I was hoping for more "Fuck you! It's just another uninspired sequel to an uninspired franchise! My response to this theoretical response is that it's an inspired sequel to a game released back when the franchise was inspired! At any rate, nobody responded with that so back to my regularly scheduled "I beat this game" thingy.

I beat Ape Quest, the downloadable Ape Escape RPG for PSP. It was ok! Lame mostly, but it's the perfect game to chill out and lazily play to keep yourself busy with. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, but I probably sunk 20 hours into it somehow. When I think about that I can't help but wonder what the fuck I was thinking.

I also read Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and it was utterly fantastic. I don't read non-comics often - I think the last book I read was Harry Potter 7 - but man, oh man, did this one make me want to read more. My only complaint is that the climactic battle (if you can even call it that) was a little too Steven King brand of lame. Other than that, everything was a total delight and I'd recommend it to anyone who can appreciate post-modern literature for its post-modernness.

Oh yeah! And I'm back from vacation in the British Virgin Islands and it was a blast! I promise I'll post pictures soon (not an actual promise).

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sat May 10, 2008 1:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
I also read Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore and it was utterly fantastic. I don't read non-comics often - I think the last book I read was Harry Potter 7 - but man, oh man, did this one make me want to read more. My only complaint is that the climactic battle (if you can even call it that) was a little too Steven King brand of lame. Other than that, everything was a total delight and I'd recommend it to anyone who can appreciate post-modern literature for its post-modernness.


Man, I did this too, and as someone who used to read a lot and who's been reading a whole lot lately, it IS fantastic.

Stuck in the last (?) dungeon of Crisis Core. Not "stuck" so much as not playing, I guess. I'll probably go back to it, though, since you thought so highly of it--but first I'd like to make a bit more progress in Metal Gear Acid.
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Ryan - SuperWes' Bane
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PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2008 3:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I read Kafka on the Shore a couple months ago and like it a lot. HOWEVER, Murakmi's Norwegian Wood is even better than KOTS in my opinion. You should check that book out too. Not the same type of book as KOTS. Just over two more months and I'll be back in the USA. If I find a car, I'd love to visit you and Christina sometime in October or so.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2008 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ryan - SuperWes' Bane wrote:
I read Kafka on the Shore a couple months ago and like it a lot. HOWEVER, Murakmi's Norwegian Wood is even better than KOTS in my opinion. You should check that book out too. Not the same type of book as KOTS. Just over two more months and I'll be back in the USA. If I find a car, I'd love to visit you and Christina sometime in October or so.

I've started it a few times and never really got into it. I'm planning on reading it eventually! From what I've read, I'm pretty sure the story and characters will be better in Norwegian Wood, but I can't imagine it fucks with your mind as much, and that's a big part of why I liked KotS. But yes, we're waiting eagerly for your visit!

-Wes
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Mon May 12, 2008 11:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pictures!

-Wes
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 03, 2008 6:09 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Been sick from work the past few days so I took the time to finish up Assassin's Creed. It's not very good, but I'd say it was worth playing. I really love the way it controls and the feeling of moving across rooftops to avoid enemy soldiers, unfortunately the storyline while you're in the past is really bad and everything you're doing feels inconsequential up until the very end. You can tell that most of the game was just the designers killing time in between the present-time storyline sequences, which are actually pretty good. Unfortunately, the control goes in the opposite direction for the present-time sequences and moving around is nearly unbearable.

Still, it's a really nice concept and a beautiful engine. I'm hopeful that the second game can clean up some of the flaws. Part of what I was looking forward to was finally having the present-time main character get access to the abilities he's learned in the Animus (that's the thingy that sends him to the past-time world), but this game never did that. I thought for sure that the final sequence would be your character waking up, discovering all of his power, and then scaling the shit out of the enormous office building that he's being experimented in. They sort of did this, but it was sort of lame and the majority of your reward comes from being able to check out people's e-mail after they leave the room. Oooh boy! Oh well. Since it's Ubisoft I think I can safely assume that there will be a sequel in early 2009. Here's hoping it all takes place in the present!

-Wes
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 3:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Finished Mario Galaxy! I liked it, but it's probably just above Mario Land 2 and Lost Levels and just below Mario Bros 2 in my hypothetical ranked list of the series.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sun Jun 08, 2008 6:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

For as much as I enjoy when I'm _playing_ the game that doesn't happen enough to keep me going. It's a shame honestly.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 12:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Beat Metal Gear Solid 4 tonight. It was great! But... I'm glad it's the last in the series. It's a beautiful game and a beautiful story, but I feel like the age of heavily cutscene-driven storytelling (no matter how many novel one-button gimmicks are thrown in) is gone.

This should be spoiler free in case you're wondering:

Unlike the rest of the series, the game portion of 4 feels like a hesitant concession to the person holding the controller during Kojima's longwinded (but clearly more highly-edited than in the past) movie. Not that being a game doesn't makes certain scenes in 4 more powerful, particularly near the end, but overall it feels disjointed. In MGS1 we're given gameplay and story that work together to create the MGS world. In MGS2 we're given a story that's thematically built around what it means to be a game. In MGS3 we're given both a game and story that are built around a specific feeling (survival). But in MGS4 we're given a story built around providing resolution and a game that's built around reminding players of what it is they're resolving. As such, it's the first game in the series that can't, and doesn't even attempt to stand alone. Trying to fit in all of the series themes prevents it from having a strong focus, and such broad ambitions create a game that feels like it's suffering from trying to do too much. Granted, this feeling also makes the game feel grander than probably anything I've ever played in my life, but like I said above, this type of design isn't aging well and I'm not sure I can bear watching another 20 hour movie in under a week again any time soon.

Kojima, thanks for this! But it's time to move on.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 28, 2008 8:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hey Wes, what are your thoughts on the new Street Fighter 4 coming out in Japanese arcades July 18th? I think I might try it out.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 1:11 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Over 55 hours and 150 quests in and I finished Final Fantasy Tactics A2 last night. Don't tell anyone, but I think this is only the second Tactical Strategy game I've ever finished after Vandal Hearts. I love the genre, but they're always so long and grindy that I hit a battle that's too difficult for me, waste an hour trying to figure out how to beat it, grind for an hour, try again, fail, and never want to go back. I never ran into that situation here.

So am I saying that what I've always wanted is an easy Tactical Strategy game? Maybe! But FFTA2 does something important whose result is that the game can become easy. It does away with random battles. There are essentially 20ish core story missions out of over 300 missions. All optional missions all have their own mission and story chains that culminate in some sort of reward at their end. This structure means that you never have to do a battle that isn't working its way toward some sort of bigger picture goal. This worked well for me.

I understand the criticisms of the game. As a genre piece, rewards come slow, the plot doesn't even try, and sometimes enemy turns feel like they're taking ages, but I was willing to overlook these things because of one major thing that everyone else seems to get wrong. It never pissed me off.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Wed Jul 30, 2008 3:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I still haven't finished it. I got distracted by optional quests, and then I picked up The World Ends With You, which is kinda blowing me away. FFTA2 did piss me off, for reasons I posted about in the SB thread, mostly involving errors in programing and inconsistent definitions. (The game can't make up its mind about whether Stop is a debuff, for instance.)

I have the last mission opened. I suppose I should go ahead and top it off. Couldn't be too hard, considering.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Mon Aug 11, 2008 7:28 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I beat Braid. It was good! Probably not as good as people have been saying, but certainly very clever throughout. I like Portal more for sure, simply because I felt like I played a bigger part in the narrative, but to even have the two mentioned in the same sentence is certainly a testament to how good it was.

The background art was amazing. If I ever go back and play it again I'd like to concentrate on trying to read that element more closely. I didn't quite understand all of the text, but I also get the feeling that working hard to understand it might not get me anywhere, so I doubt I'd concentrate on that. I appreciate it, but every time I thought I understood what was going on I ended up coming across a bit that would dispel my theory. Meh.

-Wes
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 6:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Finished Bionic Commando Re-Armed last night. Wow, what a great game. I'm still not a fan of the fact that when you lose all of your lives you've got to restart the level from the beginning, but honestly that probably would have made some parts too easy and they would have had to adjust the difficulty curve to get around that.

It was mostly smooth sailing up until the end which took me three nights of learning the final level before I finally made it through. Despite not getting an achievement I feel like I accomplished something. Woo!

-Wes
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ApM
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 11:19 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
Despite not getting an achievement I feel like I accomplished something. Woo!

Should've played EA Sports Fantasy Football Live Score Tracker instead.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 1:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ApM wrote:
Should've played EA Sports Fantasy Football Live Score Tracker instead.

That is amazing. I love that the "Press Start" achievement is different from the "Pause Game" achievement.

-Wes
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Mon Sep 08, 2008 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I beat Bangai-O Spirits this weekend. Well, I don't really think I beat it, but I got an ending telling me that it's time to return it to the store so I guess I did.

See, I think this non-beat beating thing is a result of the localization. Apparently the Japanese version had all of the levels in one big group, but for the US release they split them up into "treasure favorites", "puzzle", and uhh, something else. I finished all of the treasure favorites and got the ending. Pretty lazy, but hey! It's another one for my list!

-Wes
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 13, 2008 2:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Woah. I just beat Disgaea 3. I think I put in around 40 hours, which is a pretty damn big amount of time for me.

Verdict: I obviously really liked it! What I liked best is that I had to do very, very little grinding. The small bit of grinding that I did do involved going into no more than 3 10-level item worlds to get some cash, get some better armor through item drops, and level up weaker people. Unlike Desgaea 1, these were really pleasant experiences this time! I can actually see myself going back and trying to break the shit out of the game, but I probably won't. Still, well worth the $50, and probably the most fun I've had on my PS3 since Uncharted.

And for those keeping score at home: that makes 2 different 40+ hour Tactical RPGs I've beaten in 2008. That's like 200% more than ever in the past!

-Wes
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 8:37 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Got Little Big Planet yesterday aaaaaaand finished it the same day. I played from 2- 11:00, only stopping for dinner, so I'd say the main-game story mode is about 7 hours long. This would sound short, but I didn't get 100% on any of the stages and doing so will take easily 4-5 times as long as just finishing the game. Still, there it is.

Aaaaand I absolutely loved it. The level design was superb and it totally blew my mind all of the things that the built-in editor is capable of. I'm pretty pumped to start making and playing other people's stages, but the servers have been down ever since I got the game. I wonder if Sony will actually try to fix this or if they'll just wait for the hype to die down.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sun Oct 26, 2008 10:03 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, that is impressive.

I played for about 4 hours last night? I only got through the first two worlds but I went back and "Aced" each level before moving on. Still far from 100% on each, but I definitely plan on going back to them.

Also, I made it through all of the tutorials in the level create mode. There is certainly lots to play with!

As for the servers, I heard that they aren't going live until Monday as that is the new "actual" release date? I dunno. I guess it is giving all of the early starters a chance to go through the single player/offline campaign in the meantime.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 01, 2008 6:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Finished up Fable 2 today. I'm still not sure what I think about it. I like having freedom a lot, but doing so seems to make things that happen during scripted events feel less important. I felt attached to my dog near the beginning, but as soon at the tutorial stuff ended and he stopped finding buried treasure, my attachment stopped mattering. I felt attached to my wife as well, but when we were only able to have one kid total and girls in the same town started asking me for engagement rings right in front of her, my suspension of disbelief went away and I started seeing how many hookers I could bring home without her wanting a divorce. The answer is, not too many, but you're fine as long as you dance a few jigs in between prostitutes.

I think the biggest problem is that the game tries really hard to dedicate itself to the principal that giving the player interesting choices with varying results will make them feel more engaged. This is a good principal, but it only really pays off if they're willing to play through the game a second time. I'm not, so I'm probably not going to get as much out of it as someone with endless time on their hands.

So my final opinion, and one that involves giving the game a score, thus going against everything The Gamer's Quarter stands for, is that Fable 2 is an 8.5ish game. I mention this because I have no idea how that dude at Eurogamer could have given it a ten. Discuss!

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 02, 2008 8:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Really it's more like an 8.3 I can'tbelieve you overrated that total crap game i mean it's pretty good but comeon, 8.5 it's not like game of the year, plz 8.3 ftw!
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm writing in my blog and I didn't beat a game! What? Yep. I'm writing to announce that I've got a bundle of joy due June of next year.

Woo!

We got some pictures this morning that I'll post later tonight. Pretty exciting! Now that Bush is going to be out of the white house I feel safe bringing another life into this world.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 4:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

June 4th June 4th June 4th
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 5:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Congratulations! Fatherhood is awesome.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 6:27 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Congrats, Wes! That's awesomely exciting.
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SuperWes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 11:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



-Wes
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 8:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

congratulations and best of luck!
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 08, 2008 11:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Congratulations, Wes; it's a Metroid!

No seriously, e-cigars all around. Best of luck to you both!

/ /
| |
// ] ] ] ] ] ] >

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PostPosted: Sun Nov 09, 2008 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just beat Gears 2 on Hardcore. I liked it, but after the first one it's less of a mind-blowing display of what Next-Gen Gaming can be and more of a nice sequel. Horde mode is probably where things are going to be at with this. Best part: The campaign didn't have any annoying mine cart areas!

Time to start Insane mode!!

-Wes
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PostPosted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I finished Resistance 2 tonight. It was seriously superb. It was near the bottom of my radar and I was close to not getting the game at all, but Circuit City had their $10 gift card with purchase thing going on and I showed no resistance (I promise that's the only one). The impulse paid off with one of my favorite FPS games ever. I don't think a better paced shooter exists, and that's saying a lot. One minute you're blasting hundreds of zombies away with a shotgun, the next you're freezing time to snipe down enemies that are shooting down on you from a nearby building, and the next you're shooting rockets at a 30 story tall walking monster.

I'm not prepared to say it's a better game than Gears 2 simply because there's something about Gears that makes me want to go back and play it even though I just finished it, but I'm very, very glad that I decided to pick up Resistance 2. These types of purchases are going to go out with a bang as soon as the baby's here, but I'm glad I was able to get one last hurrah.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:33 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Have you tried R2 online yet? I am a huge fan of the coop mode - so long as you are placed with some decent people - and looking forward to (but haven't tried yet) the competitive 60 player games.

I think I'm on Ch. 5 or 6 of the main game on Hard mode and yeah, I also think it is superb.
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PostPosted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

silentmatt wrote:
Have you tried R2 online yet?

I've played maybe 10 rounds total in co-op. It's fun, but I can't stand how they shoot you back to the title screen after every round. It's co-op. I should have the opportunity to make my way through the story with my group, not be forced to find a new one every round. If I had a regular group of friends that had PS3s and Resistance 2 I could see myself really getting into it.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:05 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Agreed - I'm really hoping that is fixed in an upcoming patch.

At least it is more stable than the beta, whereby if someone joined the game while it was loading - it crashed for everyone.

As it stands now, organizing to play with more than a friend or two is pretty damn tricky since the games fill-up so quickly.
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PostPosted: Sun Nov 16, 2008 9:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

So I beat Mirror's Edge! It was both frustrating and short, but also very beautiful and intense. The combat is terrible and despite the insistance of the promotional interviews that you can beat the game without ever killing anyone, what this means is that you've got to disarm all of the enemies in the latter part of the game, making the game three times as frustrating.

Mirror's Edge shows us that platforming can be done well in a first person game, but it also shows us why most games have abandoned platforming as the sole mechanic. Jumping and climbing is fun, but failing jumps and redoing sections because of slight imprecision is incredibly frustrating.

I predict that the game to combine Mirror's Edge style platforming with both a gun and Prince of Persia-sytle "he tried to jump here so lets just give him the benefit of the doubt" jump correction will be game of the year some time in the next few years. For now though, Mirror's Edge is a game that shows a lot of hints of greatness through gobs of annoyance.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 22, 2008 12:16 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fallout 3 is over. And to steal a joke from Lestrade, I am now ready for the Apocalypse. And the Apocalypse kind of happened on Friday. My wife was fired (as part of a group of 14 or more people) in a downsizing effort at the office we both work at. Thankfully I'm still employed, but it's pretty rough.

Anyway, Fallout 3 was pretty good. They're saying there are 300 endings, but what I find hilarious is that these endings are comprised solely of a recap of everything you did during the game, so that number comes totally from the branches and subquests that you accomplished in your playthrough. I figured it had to be something cheesy, but whatever. I'd personally have rather seen what happens after the ending event than a recap of everything I've already seen.

Still, the game was pretty great. Aside from a the one major flaw that every time I stepped foot in a town I got so disoriented that I wanted to leave as soon as humanly possible it was a damn fine game. After completely wiping out a slave town without ever speaking to anyone, I really wonder how much things would have changed if I would have played as the bad guy and just killed everyone in existence. If it hadn't taken me 30 hours the first time I might be tempted to find out!

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 07, 2008 9:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Finished a few games today. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Penny Arcade: Adventures Ep. 1.

Star Wars was strange in that it felt like it should have been great, but ended up feeling really average and repetitive. I think the problem is that when you have control your character is essentially a totally invulnerable badass, so all of the challenge lies in times when control is taken away from you, like when a blaster shoots you down and everyone keeps hitting you back down until you die. If they're going to make you a badass the game needs to have its challenge lie in puzzle-solving or timing or pattern recognition or somewhere that is related to failure at an action rather than the inability to make action. As it is, it was certainly worth playing for a lot of the set design, but it wasn't something I'd recommend to anyone who isn't a Star Wars fan. Play Psi-Ops instead.

Penny Arcade was pretty good. The writing stands out as the highlight, but the plot that's driving the writing is really weak and holds back the desire to stick with the game to see what happens next, which is why, despite having the game since launch, I didn't beat it until now. It's certainly better than Sam and Max: Episode 1, which is the other Hothead game I've played.

One thing that's interesting: I spent part of the afternoon reading a book on videogame interface design. It's a surprisingly informative book, that goes over a lot of things you don't really think about unless you're immersed in the design world daily. Anyway, as I played Penny Arcade I noticed a few major issues that they should have been able to fix if they had a better visual designer on board. Chief of these is the text selection. When you're presented with text selections, the highlighted text is only a slight variation on the color of the unselected text. This makes it difficult to know what text you have selected. It's a small thing, but it's something that I've seen overlooked in more games and DVD menus than you'd think.

Yeah, so I'm not sure if I'm interested in PA: Episode 2, but I'll at least play the demo to see if the little things I didn't like were improved at all.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 1:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

SuperWes wrote:
It's certainly better than Sam and Max: Episode 1, which is the other Hothead game I've played.

I guess Ron Gilbert is at Hothead now so that might make the two companies swirl together in your brain? Because Telltale and Hothead are not even located in the same country.
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2008 2:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

ApM wrote:
SuperWes wrote:
It's certainly better than Sam and Max: Episode 1, which is the other Hothead game I've played.

I guess Ron Gilbert is at Hothead now so that might make the two companies swirl together in your brain? Because Telltale and Hothead are not even located in the same country.

Interesting! You're right! Anyway, yeah. I guess I'll switch my comparison to "episodic." Yeah. Penny-Arcade is better than Sam and Max: Episode 1, which is the only other episodic game I've played.

I started Episode 2 last night and so far it's a bit better. They fixed the text issue by making highlighted text green instead of gray, and they tightened up everything else just slightly to make it feel less like a flash game. Still not perfect, but it's much better. I wonder if the improvements made it into the PS3 version.

The most surprising addition is a focus on non-linearity. You now have several missions at once, all of which overlap, so you end up running back and forth between areas, gathering things that help you in other areas. This doesn't get very annoying because enemies only respawn as the story needs it and your spawn room in each area moves as your objectives change. It's nice how they give you the feeling of nonlinearity without the hassles of backtracking.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 15, 2008 10:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok. PA Episode 2 is finished. I liked parts of it a lot more than the first one, but the ending was really bad. Episode 1 had me pumped for part 2, but part 2 kind of just ends. In retrospect, it seems clear that the story isn't being driven by a plot, but rather by events and locations that would be really cool to see in a game. Sadly, this generally makes for better games, but in this case, since it's episodic, it seems to run counter to the whole concept of asking the player to keep paying to see more of the story.

That said, the events and locations were really, really great in this. The pacing is improving, parts of it are laugh of loud funny, and the cutscenes are really well done, and make for worthwhile rewards for progress. If Hothead can get their plot in order for the third one they'll really have something special.

If there's one thing this game continues to prove, it's that tacking a mostly average game onto the adventure genre or vice versa is a legitimate way to make a game more compelling. Worked for Resident Evil.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 21, 2008 5:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Dragon Quest IV DS complete!

I really loved the chapter-based storytelling of the first half of DQ4, but as soon as you hit chapter 5 and pick up the rest of your party the game starts to feel a lot less interesting. I think part of it is that nonlinearity kicks in and it became difficult to figure out what to do next, but it's also that the story moves away from being character-driven and loses track of what it is that's supposed to be driving you forward.

Overall I enjoyed the game though, and I'm curious how different it was on the NES, having never played it on that system. Looking forward to DQV!

-Wes
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 23, 2008 9:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Beat God of War: Chains of Olympus for the PSP yesterday in the airport. It was good! The graphics and control were just as good as the PS1 and PS2 versions, and the level design felt like it came straight out of those games.

It's strange to play something on a portable system that would feel at home on a console. Being portable actually screwed me up a few times. If you've played God of War (or any modern action game, actually) you know that sometimes the game uses short cutscenes to guide your eyes to wherever it is you're supposed to be going next. Being a portable game, I would often get distracted by things in the real world while playing. These distractions are going to be easiest to pick up on during cutscenes. More than once I looked up during a scene telling me to backtrack and ended up having no idea where to go until I restarted and actually paid attention.

I started the game a few months ago, but only really got around to it over this wedding trip, but I'm pretty sure I chose to play the game on the "hard" difficulty setting. I say this because I had a lot more trouble than I've ever had in a God of War game. Green orbs seemed like they restored barely any of my life, and most hits I took seemed to take down a fourth of my life bar. Playing on hard revealed a few flaws in the God of War formula that may or may not have been there in the past. Often checkpoints were placed right before unskippable cutscenes or prior to difficult battles with no healing chests nearby. I've never noticed this before, but to get around screwing over the player, the game will restore a small chunk of your life after 5 or 6 retries. This is elegant in that most players probably won't notice it, but it's also sort of a concession to a questionable design decision. I don't fault Ready at Dawn since this was probably present in the original design, but it's something that stood out for me, which isn't a good thing.

I sound like I'm dogging on the game a lot, but I actually enjoyed it a lot. I hope the rumors are true that Ready at Dawn is returning to PSP development. If it's a possibility I'd love to see an Uncharted portable!

-Wes
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 7:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Everything Wes said about DQIV + 10. The game expects you to remember every freakin' dialogue box, apparently, or write down everything villagers say that sounds even a little important. Either that or warp to EVERY FREAKIN' TOWN and talk to everybody, including those in the towns that are inexplicably excluded from the warp list. Maybe the party talk would have provided some guidance, but they took that out of the American release. This was until recently the only main series DQ game I hadn't played (though I still haven't beaten 6), and now it's easily my least favorite.

DQV is a much better game and I don't see how anything beyond massive revision could screw that up. DQIV is technically sound, and V is an inherently more interesting game.

Does anyone know if all the terrible puns in the American release are accurate? Lots of characters are named things like "Tom Foolery" and "Streon Louse." Towns are named things like "Canalot."
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 10, 2009 10:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Beat Prince of Persia: No Subtitle today. It was pretty good! The ending was superb. I'd like to talk more about it right now but I'm kind of drunk and busy so it'll have to wait.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My fetus is a girl! Coming June 16thish!

-Wes
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 9:36 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Last night I finished Naruto: The Broken Bond. This is basically an expansion pack to Naruto: Rise of a Ninja that completes the first story-arc. It's interesting to see what design decisions they made to get a second game out in just a year. The background graphics are better, but the models don't seem to be as good. The main hub from the first game is reused completely, but they went through the effort of completely tearing it apart at the beginning of the game and having you do missions to restore it during the game.

The annoying stuff from the first game is trimmed down for this one. In the previous game you could walk on walls and water only if you performed certain hand-signals first, but for this game they got rid of the most-common hand-signals and just let you do these actions at the push of a button. Unfortunately, this means that the hand-signals they left in picked up the mantle and became annoying.

The fighting engine was always surprisingly great, and remains so. I like that they added new fighting features without sacrificing any of the existing complexity. I never really played the vs. part of the first game, so it's nice to be able to play as more than just the core team instead of having to leave the single player game to do so.

The big surprise is the lack of a push to do side-quests. In the first game I would often sit down and do nothing but races and coin collecting, but for some reason I never really felt compelled to in this one. In fact, I was 2/3s of the way through the game before I realized that this game still had those things! The game still took me around 14 hours, which I think is pretty good for playing the game straight through.

Overall, I liked Naruto: The Broken Bond, but I'd probably think twice before buying another yearly update. I enjoyed these two games, but at this point the only thing differentiating the games is the story, and I'm already reading that in the Manga.

If anyone actually reads this, I'll go ahead and ask what I should start playing next! I've got unopened copies of Too Human, The Last Remnant, and Siren sitting in my entertainment center. Which one of these can tide me over until Street Fighter IV?

-Wes
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 9:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Siren, but only if you have a Gameshark. Slap on invincibility and infinite ammo and certain segments of the game STILL manage to be too hard. (One character dies if she is touched by a Shibito no matter what.) Go all out, pull up a guide that tells you how to do everything and where to get all the archive items. Believe it or not, even with all the cheating, it's one of the most rewarding games ever.
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 05, 2009 10:15 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Swimmy wrote:
Siren, but only if you have a Gameshark. Slap on invincibility and infinite ammo and certain segments of the game STILL manage to be too hard. (One character dies if she is touched by a Shibito no matter what.) Go all out, pull up a guide that tells you how to do everything and where to get all the archive items. Believe it or not, even with all the cheating, it's one of the most rewarding games ever.


Uhh, I'm playing it on PS3 so I don't think a GameShark is an option.

Also: Since this post was made two days ago I chose Too Human. It's not nearly as bad as the demo had led me to believe, but wow. Nordic fanfiction mixed with Matrix netfapping makes for a really fucking retarded universe.

-Wes
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PostPosted: Mon Feb 09, 2009 6:29 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Swimmy wrote:
Siren, but only if you have a Gameshark. Slap on invincibility and infinite ammo and certain segments of the game STILL manage to be too hard. (One character dies if she is touched by a Shibito no matter what.) Go all out, pull up a guide that tells you how to do everything and where to get all the archive items. Believe it or not, even with all the cheating, it's one of the most rewarding games ever.


I've always wanted to do this. When I bought the game, it took all of three hours before I wanted to throw it out a window.
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PostPosted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 10:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Finished Flower last night. It was a great feeling game and I totally appreciate it as art, but as something I paid $10 for I feel kind of ripped off. I tried to make it last by playing it over 3 days, but even then it felt like 10 minutes a day. It sucks when 1/7th of a game is the credits.

Not to downplay the experience, but play it at a friend's house if you've got the option.

-Wes
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