Not quite a month...

Sorry for my recent absence... Work, music, and a particularly nice girl all contributed.

I did find the time to make all kinds of progress in Ys 6, and while it's been a lot of fun, I can't wait to finish it and get into Ys 3; same engine, but supremely optimised with a properly fleshed-out narrative... Mmm. Ghost Of Sparta'll fit in there somewhere, I'm sure.

I also tracked-down a copy of and got started on Fragile Dreams on Wii, and man, is that a ever a beautiful and lonely game! I'd've spent much more time with it if I hadn't gotten a sweet deal on a new copy of Epic Mickey :) Basically, I paid a premium to get the latter title new, so I'm gonna make sure I get my money's worth and play it ASAP. Anyway, I'm a few hours in, and I'm loving it! Yeah, Epic Mickey's reminiscent of the oversaturated third-person mascot-driven platformer genre from previous console generations, but it's just so slick; great graphics, tight controls, a neat gimmick (create the world around you with paint, or destroy it with paint-thinner), and a genuinely interesting take on familiar characters. The cutscenes feel out of place, the camera can be mildly frustrating at times, and there are secret warps that can make following the narrative feel very stilted, but all of that good and bad isn't what's really important.

So yeah, we have a nostalgic 3D platformer that may seem a little rough around the edges... Who cares? Well, you should. It's old news that Warren Spector (Deus Ex) headed-up the development of this game, we've known about the infusion of his trademark branching, morality-based gameplay almost since the project was first announced, and the game certainly looks dark and foreboding, but only once you begin to experience the repercussions of your many actions will you understand the feeling I'm about to describe. Every area has numerous solutions, and they're not all black and white decisions between good and bad. Sure, you can play the game with a focus on altruism and paint, or be more self-serving and paint-thinner your way through the world, but there are also a lot of gray-area alternatives and seemingly extraneous paths throughout, and that's where things get interesting. Here's an example: I had already solved an area in various ways, and noticed a couple of gears I hadn't seen before. The gears were clearly susceptible to my paint-thinner, so I erased one, and then the other, and then something broke and a gremlin I had befriended earlier started yelling at me. Apparently, I had just undone all of the hard work he'd performed for me behind the scenes. I promptly re-painted the gears, but it was too late; the damage had been done, and there was no going back! I was just being irresponsible with my destructive powers, and the game surprised me with real repercussions. I honestly felt kinda bad! What's great about Epic Mickey is that these situations become more morally challenging and complex as the game progresses. I'm nowhere near the end yet, and I really can't wait to see what's next :)

Oh, and Shank got really repetitive as I slogged through it... I'll finish it some day.

As for work, blah! Bandwidth issues (looking into fancy multi-WAN routers), planning for a new server and server software, moving our main database offsite and migrating to a remote client setup, planning a major anti-virus upgrade after our previous solution started taking-down computers with 40GB (or smaller) hard drives, re-imaging computer labs over the holidays, updating and expanding our BlackBerry server, and much, much more. I need a real vacation.

It Has Begun!

I haven't had much time for games the past week or so, but I did take a look at next week's release list - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Donkey Kong Country Returns, NBA Jam, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, Sonic Colors - and it's clear that the holiday buying season is upon us!

Prometheus

Tracked-down God of War: Ghost of Sparta and Ys: The Oath in Felghana for PSP (the latter was particularly elusive), as well as Silent Hill 2 for XBOX... But I've yet to actually play any of them.

I'm still grinding though Ys: The Ark of Napishtim, and it's a fun grind that's never too long and monotonous. It's interesting to observe how the characters, weapons, and enemies are balanced; how certain areas are off-limits simply because your character may not yet be strong enough to deal any damage to the enemies there. That approach makes the world feel a little more organic and open, but sometimes it almost backfires... Like when I had to grind the same room over and over just to be able to deal any significant damage to a particular boss enemy, and when I discovered that I was able to jump ahead to one particular area and hurt certain enemies that yielded huge amounts of experience points and currency. What's impressive about those exploits is that they still feel organic in the context of the game. Retreating from a powerful enemy or carefully tiptoeing around an area you aren't supposed to see yet doesn't pull you out of the experience, especially since it still doesn't make the game easy; just less punishing ;)

P.S. Pac-Man Championship Edition DX looks totally sweet...

Yeesh...

Ys: The Ark of Napishtim (Ys 6) is a hell of a lot harder than Ys Seven; it also appears to be much shorter, as I'm already about half-way through the game; it's also plagued by annoying load times and inconsistent framerates; it's also really fun despite all of that! The PSP version of Ys: The Oath in Felghana (Ys 3) is released today (alongside God Of War: Ghost Of Sparta!), so that should keep me satisfied on this alternative action-RPG bender :)

63 and 1/3

I bought a copy of ClayFighter: Sculptor's Cut for Nintendo 64 today... $30 even, at a flea market; it's usually ~$50 + shipping on eBay :) Not a great game, but certainly a rarity as it was a rental-only Blockbuster-exclusive title.

Oh, fuck off!

I thought I was being all subversive in the wake of Bioshock 2's canceled PC DLC by buying a used copy for 360 today... Only to get home and read this.

In better news, I finished Ys Seven, and it was great; I highly recommend it despite the cheesy translation. I also picked-up dirt-cheap copies of Sly Cooper and TimeSplitters for PS2. I'd been meaning to try those games for a while now...

Professional

I traded-in my Canadian ColecoVision Expansion Module #1 and snagged a first-generation Atari 7800 ProSystem (the one with the never-leveraged-and-subsequently-covered-over-in-later-hardware-revisions expansion port) last night, along with Asteroids, Ballblazer, Food Fight, and Ms. Pac-Man... No Ninja Golf yet, but it will be mine.

I'm thoroughly impressed with the system from a design standpoint versus its contemporaries, and the advantages are especially apparent with Ballblazer... Seriously, watch this video. Food Fight and Ms. Pac-Man are great arcade ports, and Asteroids is a unique raster-based interpretation of the vector-based arcade original. The 2600 backwards compatibility of the whole thing is a nice bonus, but those stock controllers're kinda whack.

Anyway, I finished Costume Quest, and it was signature Double Fine goodness, complete with familiar tropes and nods to fans throughout the game. It's a simplistic RPG in the same vein as Penny Arcade Adventures; the concept is genius, the presentation is golden, and the short length of the adventure feels just right. It's pretty repetitive, but it never feels like a chore. I highly recommend it.

Christmas in October!

Seriously, yo... The Writer DLC for Alan Wake was a nice little package, Sonic 4 is a great update to the 2D Sonic games, Costume Quest is ridiculously fun (though the text is a little hard to read), and Super Meat Boy is just... I don't even know... Play it! As an added bonus, Super Meat Boy was released on sale and because I bought all of the aforementioned games on XBLA in October, I'm supposedly getting 800 MS points credited to my account next month!

Oh, and I'm really tempted to pick-up an Atari 7800 and track down a copy of Ninja Golf... How I didn't notice that game until yesterday baffles me.

Progress

I just can't wrap my head around the Dead Rising games... They're good, visceral fun, but I hate the save system.

Anyway, I can't wait for Costume Quest and I'm eager to get into the new Alan Wake DLC. I've finished Halo: Reach (solid game, great production values, nothing particularly special though), Scott Pilgrim (amazing experience), and The Secret Of Monkey Island Special Edition (pretty, funny, and satisfying; albeit with some fundamental design flaws), and I'm almost done with Shank (looks great, getting repetitive). S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky is notably arduous and only vaguely interesting so far, but I loved the first game, so I'll stick with it for now.

Really tempted to just pick-up Enslaved... Spear Of Destiny is keeping me busy for the time being though :)

Penguins, Earthworms, and Monkeys

Well, shit.

Anyway, I found copies of Surf's Up and NHL 10 for XBOX 360 and together they cost me ~$10; that's a huge value for two totally sweet games! I also snagged Darkwatch for XBOX as well as a complete copy of Earthworm Jim 2 for SEGA Saturn to replace my disc-only copy. Ooh, and I got in on that $10 Left 4 Dead & Left 4 Dead 2 bundle on Steam!

I've been sick and busy all week, so I've yet to complete the last few missions of Halo: Reach, but I did find the time to install S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Clear Sky and continue along in The Secret Of Monkey Island.

...And now, demos. Enslaved is totally sweet. Quantum Theory is weak. Vanquish has potential. Hydrophobia is interesting.

Back In Action

It's so nice to have a kick-ass computer again... I played through the single-player campaign in Modern Warfare 2, and it was totally sweet; great set-pieces and high production values deliver a fantastic solo game, so there really is something there for everyone.

I've since moved on to Halo: Reach, and it's really solid so far; I'm about 1/3 through a solo campaign. I'm still working through Ys Seven as well, and still having lots of fun there.

Recent acquisitions include Ivy The Kiwi and Resident Evil 4 (gonna give it another try) for Wii, and I finally found a reasonably-priced (though sun-faded) copy of Earthbound for SNES along with a reproduction cartridge of Earthbound Zero for NES... Yeah, I'll find the time for Fable II, Metroid Prime 3, and Yakuza 2 at some point, I'm sure ;)

Resolution

Steam was running in Compatibility Mode on my Windows 7 machine... I'm not sure why. I put a stop to that, though I had to edit the registry to do so.

Performance on that same machine had become sluggish and choppy, and the cause turned-out to be the ASUS-provided drivers for my ASUS PCE-13N wireless network card; I've since installed Ralink drivers, as the card is built around a Ralink RT2790T chipset. All runs smoothly now.

Still regarding the same machine, I never could get all three sticks of RAM running together stably at 2000MHz, despite an extensive discussion with a G.SKILL technician. They offered to allow me to RMA the whole kit (2000MHz, 9-9-9-24-1N) for something a little more tame (1600MHz, 7-7-7-21-2N), but I tested the current kit at both 7-7-7-21-2N and 9-9-9-24-1N at 1600MHz, and the performance difference was negligible; I'm talking a latency difference of ~3ns (61ns vs. 64ns) and a bandwith difference of ~20MB/s (67.66GB/s vs. 67.68GB/s). Given that the RMA process would leave me without a functioning computer for a few weeks and neuter my upgrade path, all for a trivial speed increase, I think I'll be keeping the 2000MHz RAM and running it at lower frequencies.

So all is now well, and I am at peace :)

Escaping The Mouse

Alan Wake (and "The Signal" DLC) was great! Remedy has done a pretty good job of keeping things fresh and interesting; the gameplay never became tedious, and the story kept me guessing... I haven't been able to bring myself to complete a survival horror game since Resident Evil 2, and I couldn't put Alan Wake down until it was complete. Well done!

Anyway, I've been away for the past week... Wrapped-up most of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World: The Game before I left, and it was glorious. Buy it. It's cheap, nostalgic, epic, visceral, and fulfilling. The movie's pretty awesome too, as are the graphic novels... Yeah, I'm a fan, and it has nothing to do with the fact that the whole thing takes place in my actual neighbourhood or that my band has played the same venues featured in the books/movie/game ;)

Shank's up next for me, but I'm suffering from the stuttering cinematic issue that's been going around; I've yet to fire-up the game to see if there's a patch.

I brought Ys Seven along while I was away, and it's pretty sweet. Good graphics and music, standard story, engaging gameplay, and awesome boss battles that are genuinely challenging. I never did finish the first three games on TurboGrafx CD, decided to abandon all hope of doing so once the PSP remakes were announced, and have yet to try Ys VI on PSP... But it's supposedly the same formula each time, so I figured this'd be as good a place to start as any. It was a toss-up between Ys Seven, Lunar Silver Star Harmony, and Persona 3 Portable... As well as a bunch of other quality PSP RPGs I've yet to explore.

Moving on, remember that RAM issue I was having with my new computer? G.SKILL approved my RMA request and I got a stick of RAM in the mail last week... But there was no correspondence once I sent the faulty module away, or paperwork shipped back with it. The module they sent back doesn't work either, so I'm wondering if they just returned the old one (it would only fail under specific conditions, which I outlined in the RMA request) or the replacement is faulty as well. Grrr. In the meantime, I'm running at DDR3-1600 speeds :|

For myself.

I bought a complete copy of Air Zonk for TurboGrafx-16 for myself for my birthday on Wednesday :)

Yup.

The Best-Looking Upcoming 2D Games

Legacy

I picked-up copies of Soul Reaver for Dreamcast and Soul Reaver 2 for PS2... For convenience's sake, I guess. Also snagged a copy of Rabbids Go Home for Wii 'cause it was cheap; haven't played it yet.

I did, however, sit down with Limbo on XBLA, and if I hadn't gotten sick over the weekend, I would've finished it in one sitting; sweet game, slick presentation, powerful imagery.

Kinda wishing Prince Of Persia was over already so that I could focus on Alan Wake... Not that Prince Of Persia is bad, but it's all feeling very repetitive and I'm only a little over half-way though the game.

Anyway, a friend recently came to me with a need for a motherboard, CPU, RAM, video card, PSU, and case with a strict budget of $600 before tax... Here's what I suggested:

• Gigabyte GA-P55-USB3
• Intel Core i5 750
• OCZ DDR3 1600MHz Gold Edition Low Voltage 4GB (2x2048MB)
• Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 5670 1GB
• Cooler Master Elite 350 Mid Tower Case w/350W PS

More Than Nostalgia

Just got Wonder Boy III for SEGA Master System and AMOK for DOS/Windows... I'd never played the former, and now I'm wishing I had; it's so very much better than the second Wonder Boy/first Monster World game! I can't wait to take the time to really get into this one. As for AMOK, it was a favourite of mine back in the day, but I never could find the PC version. I snagged the Saturn version not too long ago, but playing it at 800x600 in 16-bit colour with a keyboard is the way to do it; even considering that I had to dust-off my Windows 98 SE machine (300MHz Pentium II, 196MB of PC66 RAM, and a 32MB AGP ATi Rage Fury) to get it running :) Both games hold-up incredibly well today!

3D Glasses!

I watched Coraline in 3D on Blu-Ray... The effect was pretty cool, but the colours sucked.

Anyway, I also picked-up a pair of SegaScope 3-D glasses along with Blade Eagle 3-D, Maze Hunter 3-D, Missile Defense 3-D, Poseidon Wars 3-D, and Zaxxon 3-D. The first adaptor card I got (used to connect the glasses to the system) was faulty, but the second one worked fine. The effect is novel and the games're pretty creative, but I did notice a few issues. The most glaring problem I ran into was with Blade Eagle 3-D, where there appeared to be two ship sprites when your ship descends; it looked like a focus issue, though I suppose it may be intentional... Which would be weird. Anyway, moving on, when I play light-gun games I tend to close one eye to help my aim, but doing so in Missile Defense 3-D negates the 3D effect. Regardless, I'm pretty impressed with the technology, and the games aren't bad. Now to track-down the three remaining 3D titles...

Epic

Picked-up a complete copy of Mickey Mania for SEGA CD... That game is really pretty :)

Awake

I snagged a copy of Alan Wake for $50 yesterday (it's still hovering around $70 at most stores), and put Prince Of Persia on hold while I checked-out the first chapter. So far, so good; Alan Wake may just be a survival-horror game that I can stand! I haven't completed a survival-horror game since Resident Evil 2...

Oh, and after winning the first seven games of the first round of the playoffs in NHL 07, the game declared my team to be the Stanley Cup champions... And then the first round continued with two more games. Ergh.

Going Back

I really dug the first Kirby game when it was released on Game Boy, but didn't really follow the series beyond that. I've been collecting the major Kirby games since, but really only got back into them today, when there was a huge blackout in my area. I ploughed through Dream Land, and am well into Dream Land 2... Only eight or so more Kirby titles to go! :)

Oh, and I defeated the boss in Wario Land: Shake-It! Then, in true Wario fashion, a bunch of secret levels were made available. I'll get back to them some day, I'm sure. Everyone who complained that the game was too short clearly didn't bother with all of the challenges and secret levels. Shake It! is definitely a worthwhile Wii investment.

Finally, I borrowed Way Of The Warrior and DOOM for 3DO from a friend after he found his Goldstar 3DO in his basement. Way Of The Warrior is every bit as ridiculous as I remember hearing it was back when it first came out, and also exceedingly difficult to play. It does have some really nice touches (graphics, music, secrets), and after doing some research on the title, I uncovered what looks to be an impressively deep fighting game... But I'm not quite ready to dedicate that much time to it just yet. DOOM, on the other hand, is just as awful as I'd heard. The 3DO port is barely playable, and the only redeeming qualities are the killer CD soundtrack and the ability to strafe using the shoulder buttons. Avoid.

Oldschool Heat

I'm having a lot of fun with Atari Karts on Jaguar. I often see it described as a Super Mario Kart clone, but it really is a very different game. While they are both kart racers, Nintendo's offering demands a balance of driving and combat whereas Atari Karts focuses almost exclusively on the former. Bonuses and hazards in Atari Karts affect your own kart (speed, handling, tires, etc...); the only offensive pick-up in the game reverses your opponent's steering, and is exclusive to multiplayer races.

I've also read numerous complaints about Atari Karts' graphics, but I suspect that many critics forget just how blocky the graphics in Mario Kart are. Atari Karts runs at a much higher resolution than the Super Nintendo game, and features some clever scaling tricks to achieve hills and jumps throughout many of its tracks. Another misguided complaint I've often seen is that the Jaguar game is too easy, but races become genuinely challenging by the mid-point of the race season... Perhaps those critics didn't play for very long ;)

There are some legitimate issues with Atari Karts (like the unnatural bumper-car physics, and how some obstacles are flat on the track and can blend-in to the road), but all of them are minor and don't significantly detract from the fun to be had. Quite simply, Atari Karts is a driver's kart racer with a gentle learning curve and some of the most impressive sprite-scaling graphics of its generation.

---

I bought BIT.TRIP RUNNER on WiiWare, and it's a great combination of delightfully frustrating gameplay, catchy and interactive music, and fantastic '80s-inspired visuals. Get it.

I've also finally taken the time to explore the free Windows version of Cave Story, and it's sublime; I'll definitely be grabbing the WiiWare remake and really digging into this one.

Oh, and Sin & Punishment: Star Successor is really good too! It's a new twist on the shoot-'em-up genre from Treasure; that right there should be enough to sell you on it.

Before I move on from the Wii, I should note that I've made it to the final battle of Wario Land: Shake It!, and it's... Annoying. It's not actually that bad, but it's definitely gonna take some practice.

Finally, do you remember when I thought my PC was overheating because of the weather, and so I took the side off my case? Turns-out it was actually the increased voltage required to get my DDR3-2000 RAM running at 2000MHz that was affecting my CPU. I've been messaging back and forth with a technician from the RAM manufacturer, but we've had no luck yet... In the meantime, all is stable at DDR3-1600 speeds.

Busy Again

My XBOX 360 doesn't seem to be displaying blue fuzz anymore; I kept the newer Jaguar (and power adapter, and controllers) once I was informed that the warranty sticker on the older one wasn't an Atari sticker, and once I discovered that neither of the consoles had the analog-input circuit; and I traded the old Jaguar and extra games for copies of Sin & Punishment: Star Successor and Super Castlevania IV... Though I haven't had time to play either of them.

128-bit?

I bought a second Atari Jaguar. This one's in better condition, cosmetically, than my first one; it's a later model (higher serial number, smaller power adapter), and doesn't have a warranty sticker like the first one. This second system came with two controllers, an RF switch, and loose copies of Atari Karts, Evolution: Dino Dudes, Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure, Tempest 2000, and Val D'Isere Skiing & Snowboarding.

I'll keep Atari Karts for sure, but I'm not sure which of the consoles, controllers, and power adapters to hang on to, and which to sell.

Fuzzy

My XBOX 360 started displaying blue visual artifacts while playing Braid... The issue was still apparent when I popped-in SSF4. It wasn't a particularly hot day or anything and visual artifacts are a common symptom in overheating GPUs, so I'm guessing that my console is on its last legs. Some may recall that I got this 360 near the end of December 2006; that means that in three days, this system will be 3.5 years old... Or exactly six months out of warranty. So do I play it until it dies? Pay to get it repaired? Trade it toward a used replacement? Splurge and grab a new 360 S? Then again, I played Price Of Persia for a while without issue after the fact, so perhaps it's not quite over yet.

NHL 07's playoff situation is getting more frustrating by the day. Six-game suspensions for too many game misconducts after one playoff game? Disappearing simmed games? I give up. I really hope that NHL 11 is coming to PSP; I will buy it as soon as it's available.

Thirteenth? Sixteenth?

Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars is the 13th game in the "Vs." series, right? I guess if we're counting both versions of the original Card Fighters' Clash games, the "Pro" version of Capcom Vs. SNK, and the "Cross Generation of Heroes" version of Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom, it becomes the 16th...

Anyway, I took the time to get familiar with it this past weekend, and I'm loving it! Great graphics, plays beautifully with an arcade stick, the music is far less annoying than what we got in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2, and the gameplay mechanics feel genuinely fresh. I'm especially impressed at the versatility of the controls; how it's not terribly overwhelming for newcomers to the genre, but deep enough to keep more serious players interested. By the way, I'm sticking with Casshan and Batsu as my team at the moment.

Es... Three Of Them.

Rayman Origins is the real show-stealer at this point; that thing looks awesome.

Otherwise, I think Nintendo's had the most impressive showing overall. Goldeneye 007 seems confused (Daniel Craig?) and Donkey Kong Country Returns feels like a step backward after Jungle Beat, yet both still look like a hell of a lot of fun. Kirby's Epic Yarn is amazing in terms of its visual presentation and gameplay design, 3DS has me genuinely excited, and Epic Mickey is looking much better than I expected after seeing those early screenshots. The new Metroid, Zelda, and Kid Icarus games are all intriguing, but haven't really gripped me like the others.

I've seen some pretty impressive stuff from all companies (for example, I'm really digging the look of Castlevania: Lords Of Shadow), but Rayman and that tidal wave of Nintendo goodness is just drowning out all the Halos and Killzones...

Oh, and I can't seem to get past the first round of the playoffs in NHL 07 on PSP. I've now beaten Florida six times (something like 5-2, 10-1, 3-1, 8-1, 3-0, 3-0), but it keeps making me play them. If I sim to the end of the series, it doesn't start the next one. Grrr...

Playoffs

The playoffs in NHL 07 on PSP seem to be broken... The game crashed consistently when trying to start the first round (I saved manually, simulated the first game, then re-loaded the save to get around that), the calendar doesn't seem to track games properly (my 10-1 game two win over Florida seems to have disappeared from the record books), and there doesn't seem to be any way to check playoff stats. Not fun.

Profit

I found Final Fantasy Tactics, Front Mission 3, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, and Xenogears for PlayStation (all complete, non-Greatest Hits) for ~$40 at a used record store, bought them, and then walked down the street and got ~$80 for them at a used game store.

I've also recently picked-up Prince Of Persia (360); The Conduit, Punch-Out!!, and Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom (Wii); Kirby 64 (N64); Uniracers (SNES); Aoi Blink, Barunba, Rabio Lepus Special, and Ryūkyū (PCE); as well as Ninja Gaiden II and III (NES). I also snagged an Hori Fighting Stick Wii and a Turbo Booster for my TurboGrafx-16.

Now then, to follow-up on my last post, Tomb Raider: Underworld is easily one of the best of the series, and I highly recommend playing through Legend, Anniversary, and Underworld. There're issues with these games, and those issues are even more apparent after great titles like Assassin's Creed raised the standard of the genre, but these modern Tomb Raiders are still very entertaining. Regarding Anniversary, while it is a remake, it serves as a reminder of past events that are important to recall when playing Underworld... I didn't finish Anniversary, so I had to read the Wikipedia entry on the Underworld plot to make sense of some parts :)

F.E.A.R. 2 really feels like more of the same from the first game, but rendered with MUCH nicer graphics and presented with a few new gameplay elements. I loved the first one and I really enjoyed this sequel, but it just didn't blow me away this time. Worth your time if you're a fan or if you've never played any part of the series before, but not exactly groundbreaking.

Prince Of Persia is visually gorgeous and an intriguing change of pace for the series. It feels more deliberate than the three previous games; more akin to the original in terms of control and pacing. The exposition is a little awkward at first, but I hear it gets better as the game progresses... Unfortunately, I don't think they'll suddenly re-cast the voice actors and tone down the ham-fisted clichés. Considering that you can get this one for $15 now, I'll gladly overlook the cheesiness and backtracking... At $60, however, I would've been much more disappointed.

So very tired...

Tomb Raider: Underworld was pretty sweet, but not without its faults; F.E.A.R. 2 was really good despite feeling like more of the same from the first game; Prince Of Persia (2008) is off to a solid start, but I'm already noticing potentially big annoyances; Tales Of Monkey Island has been great throughout.

I'll go into more detail when I'm not half asleep.

Oops...

I was apparently supposed to finish Tomb Raider: Anniversary in order for Tomb Raider: Underworld to make much sense...

Wrong Address

I bought a SEGA lot off craigslist last week. The guy gave me the wrong address and didn't provide a phone number, but that's another story...

I picked-up a model 2 SEGA CD with all three (yes, three) EMF shields and the extender for model 1 Genesises, two non-TMSS "High Definition Graphics" model 1 Genesises (that's the very first release; there were at least seven different model 1 Genesis releases), two model 1 Genesis power adapters, two six-button controllers (one first-party, one third-party), a blue Konami Justifier lightgun, 18 Genesis games, 18 SEGA CD games, some empty cases, a Nintendo R/F switch, and a coat hanger for $70. Judging by eBay prices, the lot was worth $300+ :)

I kept the SEGA CD, the EMF shields, one of the power adapters, the Justifier, and the first-party six-button controller; Android Assault, Rise Of The Dragon (box release in a jewel case), and Robo-Aleste for SEGA CD; Eternal Champions and Shadowrun for Genesis, and a bunch of the SEGA CD jewel cases... And sold the rest for $100. I'm pretty happy that I essentially got paid $30 to keep a few hundred dollars worth of stuff :)

I also picked-up official SEGA CD and Saturn back-up cartridges, and am holding-off on Alan Wake until I get through some more of this gaming backlog.

Oh, and I finished Hero 3 in Half-Minute Hero and am about half-way through Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Three Seconds.

My SEGA CDX can't read the copy of The Adventures Of Batman & Robin that I picked-up the other day... Which is unfortunate, because it seems to run just fine in emulators and on other SEGA CDs. Hell, I even copied the CD, and the burned copy runs just fine in my CDX! The disc looks immaculate, so I'm guessing that my CDX is the problem :(

I haven't had any further issues with Super Street Fighter IV disc read errors since my last post though, so that's a plus.

Stoked for Alan Wake, and planning on looking into ModNation Racers on PSP. Speaking of PSP, I'm on Hero 3 in Half-Minute Hero, and it's a fantastically frustrating good time. The Evil Lord, Princess, and Knight games are fun and add real value to the package, but the the Hero games are where it's at. That game is a system-selling killer app for the PSP.

Red

I picked-up Super Street Fighter IV for XBOX 360 yesterday, and upon inserting the disc, I was greeted with one red light on my console. I managed to get the game running, but then got disc read errors about half-way through a single-player tournament. Tried it on my brother's Elite, and didn't run into any issues... Grrr.

Tomb Raider: Underworld still has my interest, but holy crap! The camera and controls are so ragged and jumpy... I don't remember Legend being that bad.

True

Tomb Raider: Underworld looks great, but the camera's mostly crap, the controls are pretty awful, and the exposition is poorly developed... Surprisingly, it's pretty fun so far, despite all of its shortcomings.

Oh, and taking the side panel off my computer seems to have fixed the crashing issue; damned humidity.

P.S. Crysis Wars on the highest visual settings, while still pretty impressive, isn't as impressive as I remembered.

Hot

Turned-out the random crashes were due to my new PC overheating... The weather around here has gotten a lot warmer recently, and diagnostics are showing no faults or damage; so it's time to look into new cooling solutions.

Anyway, Prototype is good, but definitely not great. The ending was kinda whack, but maybe I just missed the point.

I played through Episode 2 of Tales Of Monkey Island today, and Tomb Raider: Underworld is downloading from Steam as I type this...

Prototypical

Prototype has randomly crashed three times during the final few missions... While that would be frustrating with just about any game, the fact that this one has become exceedingly boring and I'm only finishing it because I've already come this far makes matters much worse.

I think I'm still having fun...

...But I do seem to be hijacking a lot of tanks in Prototype.

Prototype

Prototype is pretty cool. While it doesn't feel as fluid as Crackdown and it's very reminiscent of its spiritual predecessor, The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, Prototype still has a lot of good stuff to offer. The gameplay is nicely varied, the atmosphere is suitably gritty, and the story is vaguely intriguing so far (I'm about 1/3rd through)... It has managed to hold my attention.

Moving along...

Bioshock 2 got better toward the end; mostly because the characters developed at a quicker pace and the plot advanced accordingly. I was a little disappointed that a few things were hinted at but not explored at any real depth (e.g. your character's origins), and I ended-up in the same position I found myself at the end of the first game; overstocked and overpowered, ignoring 75% of my inventory, and rarely feeling particularly challenged. A very satisfying game overall, I'm still in love with the setting, though the scenario could use a bit of work. The first Bioshock is a must-play; the second one isn't quite as awesome.

So now I'm on to Prototype...

Bioshock 2 is unnecessary

I'm about half-way through Bioshock 2, and I'm feeling pretty bored and apathetic. It's like the first game, but less interesting because we've done it all before. There're new characters that I don't care about (except when I wonder why they're still in Rapture some ten years after it went to shit), new gameplay aspects that I don't enjoy (defend things against waves of idiots), and some pretty serious pacing issues (the story hasn't progressed in some time; just sayin')... Essentially, I feel like I'm grinding through something very pretty that I've already finished. It's an engaging and satisfying game, but it's just not doing anything special.

Prototype and F.E.A.R. 2 are up next.

Sudden Savant?

I accidentally finished Arkham Asylum. I sat down to put in an hour or so, and ended-up ploughing through to the end before I knew it. I dig the Bioshock-esque atmosphere and I love the character presentations, but I felt the story was a little rushed; a little too convenient at times... Fantastic concept though. Similarly, the voice-actors, while top-notch, were occasionally left to struggle with some pretty awfully clichéd lines. The final battle was just ridiculous and disappointing, but it's still a killer game, worth every penny spent on it and every minute spent with it, right on par with Assassin's Creed II... But I think I had more fun with Brütal Legend last year.

Within two days of spending some quality time with Street Fighter IV, I was able to finish the game on the hardest difficulty setting without using any continues... So I fired-up Super Street Fighter II Turbo to see if I'd somehow become a Street Fighter savant. I had not; SSF2T kicked my ass in short order.

Anyway, I bought a complete copy of Alien vs Predator for Jaguar (needed the box and overlays) and Street Fighter Alpha Anthology for PS2 (only way to get SFA2 Gold), and I'm back into NHL 07 on PSP in a big way thanks to AronVad's new (and very impressive) roster update over at the GameFAQs forum.

Anticipation

I've been playing Batman: Arkham Asylum and Street Fighter IV on the new PC, and they're both pretty amazing, despite both being out for quite a while now.

While Arkham Asylum is gorgeous, fluid, and just downright impressive, it's all a little overwhelming; I'm 20% in and just feeling a little lost... I'm sure it'll coalesce as the narrative progresses.

Street Fighter IV made sense right away, but now that I've taken the time to learn its new mechanics (so I'm not playing it like SSF2T anymore), I'm a lot more comfortable competing against other people. I've unlocked every character but Seth, and while Ken's still my go-to guy, I'm really liking Abel and I'm curious to see how Makoto (my other SF3 character) shapes-up when SSF4 is released.

Oh, and my FireWire Solo causes my USB controller to stop working when waking from sleep mode on the new PC :(

Assembly

Three builds in the past week:

1. 2.4GHz "Prescott" Pentium 4 on an ECS PM800-M2 with 1GB of 400MHz DDR RAM.
2. Core i7 930 on an ASUS P6X58D Premium with 6GB of 2000MHz DDR3 RAM.
3. 2.53GHz Pentium 4 "B" on an ASUS P4T533-C with 1GB of PC800 RDRAM.

I built the Prescott machine out of some parts of my own and parts that a client insisted were broken; it works, but the CPU fan is ridiculously noisy; it'll be used to power a basic surveillance system. The i7 is my new personal machine, and it's ridiculously fast. The motherboard has one of those nifty Linux-based virtual machines for instant-on access to the Internet 'n such, but it boots Windows almost as quickly, so there isn't much point to it once you get over the novelty. The Rambus machine is a nice surprise that I pieced-together out of spare parts from various broken machines I had lying around. That one's going to a friend of mine whose desktop died - bad sectors, burst capacitors.

Jeebus!

This thing is fast!

QTE FTW

Finished God Of War II. It was a lot of fun with just the right amount of challenge, though a little too cheesy at times. My only real complaint is with the quick-time event button cues; single button presses and stick motions are indicated in the centre of the screen, but repeated presses or motions are indicated on the bottom-left of the screen. That inconsistency made the final battle awfully annoying...

Anyway, I've decided on the rest of the parts for my new computer:

• 60GB OCZ Vertex SATA 3.0Gb/s SSD
• 1TB Seagate 7200.12 SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD w/32MB cache
• Plextor PX-880SA 24x DVD+/-RW
• Antec TP-650 PSU

30 Seconds

Okay, seriously, Half-Minute Hero is amazing, and I can't put it down... It's a great blend of RPG, critical thinking, and self-referential humour that keeps me coming back for more. I've only played the Hero mode so far, and while I should be bored of it by now (~50% complete), it mixes things up just enough to keep me grinding away. The quest-specific sub-challenges are great incentives that significantly add to the replay value.

Anyway, I bought some more of my new PC today:

• Intel Core i7 930
• ASUS P6X58D Premium
• 6GB (3x2GB) 2000MHz DDR3
• Sapphire Radeon HD 5850

Fun!

PSP

Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines didn't provide the revelatory backstory I'd hoped for. While it is a solid title and certainly impressive on the PSP, the played-it-safe nature of the plot really devalues it in the series. I should also mention that the sidequests are essentially optional, as you can power-up your character quite effectively along the way by simply completing the main quest and ignoring everything else. This strictly-optional nature of the sidequests may be a response to the negative reaction that they received in the first game, but because they now offer so little added-value to the experience, they become trivial and provide no compelling reason to complete them; especially since the PSP controls aren't nearly as tight as the console games in the series. I wonder if the DS Assassin's Creed titles are any better...

Anyway, I snagged a few more PSP games the other day:

• Age Of Zombies - Amazingly good, almost entirely on account of its hilarious context for otherwise classic gameplay.
• Echoshift - I never did finish Echochrome, but I had a lot of fun with it and this one seems like a nice addition to the series.
• Everyday Shooter - Pretty cool, not as tight as the hype had led me to believe, but definitely worth checking out.
• flOw - Always loved this one, and it's very pretty on the PSP.
• Half-Minute Hero - Great concept, charming presentation, nothing else quite like it... Definitely worth your time.
• Lunar: Silver Star Harmony - Cheesy voice acting, but a real slick update to the classic game... That I've still yet to finish in any incarnation.
• Patapon 2 - I love the Patapon games because they're so engrossing, beautiful, and endearing, but I always feel overwhelmed by the depth they offer and never seem to get very far with them... I'll change that one day.

Not sure where I left-off...

...but I've since picked-up Deadly Premonition for XBOX 360, Metal Slug XX for PSP, Confidential Mission for Dreamcast, D for 3DO, NBA Jam TE for Jaguar, and Ys Book I & II for Turbo Grafx CD; I ended-up passing on Violent Soldier.

Oh, and from that Lynx lot, I kept Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Electrocop, Gates Of Zendocon, KLAX, Pac-Land, RoadBlasters, Todd's Adventures In Slime World, and Zarlor Mercenary.

Lynx II, Part II

I snagged a Lynx II, power adapter, and 15 games off a local buy & sell for $60. The system has some dead rows on the screen, and I already had or didn't want many of the games, but I should be able to make back most of my investment by trading-in what's left.

The games (all loose) were: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure (surprisingly good!), Chip's Challenge (flat cart; I'll keep my original ridged copy), Electrocop (impressive game, albeit hard to keep track of what's going on; includes an awesome selection of mini-games), Gates Of Zendocon (ridged cart; decent, though primitive-looking shmup), Gauntlet, KLAX, Pac-Land, RoadBlasters, Robotron 2084 (good conversion, but the control scheme is sorely lacking), Rygar, Todd's Adventures In Slime World (love this game), Ultimate Chess Challenge, Xenophobe, Xybots, and Zarlor Mercenary.

Holy Busy!

Latest acquisitions: Gate Of Thunder for TurboGrafx CD (Bonk's Adventure, Bonk's Revenge, and Bomberman are also included on the CD). I also have Final Soldier, Lords Of Thunder, Super Star Soldier, and Violent Soldier on hold. I picked-up Command & Conquer: Renegade and Diablo: Hellfire on Windows, and they're still great fun after all those years :)

I've also gotten back into Assassin's Creed: Bloodlines on PSP. Playing through Assassin's Creed II and seeing some of the flashbacks really tied the PSP game's storyline into the overall mythos of the series, and I'm feeling much more connected to what's happening. Yes, the graphics and voice acting are a step down from the main entries in the series; and yes the areas are smaller, the population is less dense, and the assassinations are less complex; but it's still pretty impressive to see, given the hardware. Without the story integration, it'd ultimately be a mundane exercise, but alongside the revelations of Assassin's Creed II, it really draws you in quite effectively.

Speaking of Assassin's Creed, I purchased Sequence 13: Bonfire Of The Vanities from XBOX Live after seeing the ad for it on the welcome screen. Unfortunately, it wasn't until after I'd purchased that content that I checked-out the XBL marketplace and saw the Bonfire Of The Vanities & Secret Locations option. Having already purchased the advertised version that didn't include the secret locations, there was no way for me to get those secret locations without buying the more complete package (essentially re-buying Sequence 13). I felt misled, so I called Microsoft's customer support. Long story short, the third person to whom I was connected ended-up deflecting my questions with circular logic, telling me they'd really like to help me and that they could, but that they weren't going to. Then they wished me a great day! I assured them that I would not have one. Sequence 13 was fine, and totally worth $4, by the way.

Finally, I'd like to bitch about Epson's nozzle cleaning process on my Stylus Photo R300 printer. Because two of the six ink cartridges (cyan and magenta) were low on ink, Epson's software would not allow me to perform a nozzle cleaning. I had to replace the two low-running cartridges (even though they were not empty, and I was only trying to print in black) just to clean the black nozzle. That's not cool, Epson.

Beyond

I finished Beyond Oasis on Genesis last night, and it was still great after all those years! I'd made it pretty far in the game when I was younger, but can't remember completing it. I wrapped things up pretty quickly (about four-and-a-half hours), at a relatively low rank (48) with only a little over 1000 kills, and 32 of 60 gems... So I guess I have some treasure-hunting to do. The game was enjoyable throughout, if a bit easy, but definitely an original take on a genre dominated by Zelda and full of copycats.

I've since started The Legend Of Oasis on Saturn, and I'm having mixed reactions... The graphics are gorgeous at a higher resolution than the original, there are more frames of animation, a much bigger colour palette, the addition of scaling sprites, and a new CD audio soundtrack. Consider some new key characters and core gameplay elements (like a much less forgiving save system and a revamped weapons configuration), and one might think that this game is a solid evolution of the winning original formula... But the writing is just awful, and the combat is neutered. Sure, it's a similar basic story and many of the same attacks return from the first game, but it all just feels so phoned-in. There's no character or cohesion, and it's glaringly apparent in the lack of any fluidity in combat. Another major change that I'm not too fond of is the lack of any real inventory, so health- and magic-replenishing items are used when touched rather than manually picked-up and managed in anticipation of more difficult areas. You can also only carry either one health or magic potion at a time; meaning you can have either your health or magic refill automatically upon depletion... But because the new system no longer allows you to pick things up, if you have a health potion and accidentally touch a magic potion, your health potion is lost forever. Then there're the tutorial obelisks scattered throughout the land; it would be nice if they didn't wait until the second dungeon to explain fundamental game mechanics that have been changed since the original, especially when those concepts are key to unlocking other new fundamental game mechanics that were only available in the first dungeon. Spending time backtracking in a game with a limited save system is something I only barely tolerate from the Metroid series... I don't like it here either. Perhaps these new design choices will make sense down the road, but I'm just not having the same fun I had with the first game.

On the computer front, I'm inching ever closer to purchasing a Core i7 920-based system; especially with the recent release of Bioshock 2. The novelty of owning a top-of-the-line QuickSilver 2002 Mac as kinda worn-off, but it did allow me to spend some quality time with Mac OS X... So now I'm thinking that a vanilla Mac mini (2.26GHz Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, 160GB HDD) alongside my forthcoming Windows 7 machine might be a solid idea.

Better Than Expected

In addition to Turbo Sub and Xybots for Lynx, Splatterhouse 2 for Genesis, and The King Of Fighters: Dream Match 1999 for Dreamcast, I also snagged Robo-Squash for Lynx, Skullmonkeys for PlayStation, OutRun 2006 Coast 2 Coast for XBOX, Starfox Assault for GameCube, and an XBOX 360 Chatpad.

I also set-up a free, centralised, web content filtering system using OpenDNS, Freeproxy, and custom GPOs... That was pretty cool :)

An Oasis

The Adventure of Link is incredibly frustrating and Majora's Mask is particularly confusing, so I re-started Beyond Oasis last night and got about half-way through... I love it; I should've done this ages ago!

Also, I'm gonna pick-up Turbo Sub and Xybots for Lynx, Splatterhouse 2 for Genesis, and The King Of Fighters: Dream Match 1999 for Dreamcast after work today.

Feline Naming Conventions

I bought an Atari Lynx II, an official Atari power adapter, Blue Lightning, Chip's Challenge, and Gauntlet: The Third Encounter.

I'd been hoping to pick-up RoadBlasters, Slime World, and Toki, but the place I'd seen them before had sold them since... I'm considering Battle Wheels, Hydra, Robo-Squash, Turbo Sub, and Xybots.

Radical

ODST was rad. $70 rad? No, but then I'm not really into the multiplayer aspect of it all, and ODST surely offers a wealth of multiplayer value for the Halo 3 experience. It is, however, a very enjoyable single-player campaign that shows us some new versatility within the Halo universe; would be nice as a $20~$30 product for those of us not particularly interested in multiplayer, or those of us who have already purchased much of the multiplayer content included. The save system still sucks, but re-playing the first few levels wasn't the end of the world.

I think I've given-up on my current attempt at completing Majora's Mask... I'm tempted to restart the game on Wii (The Legend of Zelda: Collector's Edition) with a walkthrough for heart pieces and the Bomber's Notebook stuff. I've already re-started The Adventure Of Link on NES.

Expansions

The new Assassin's Creed II downloadable content, Battle of Forli, was pretty cool. Nothing special, pretty short, and it didn't really add to the story (some barely-developed characters show-up and manage to outsmart the group of assassins that just saved the world!?); but $4 for an hour's worth of new content and some added replayablity ain't bad. I was a little upset that my character didn't continue with the sword I had at the end of the game (or any sword for that matter), but I managed. It was also weird that Ezio's facial hair seemed to come and go... Whoops ;) Regardless of its faults, I lok forward to the next installment of DLC.

Halo 3 ODST is really good though. Instead of being a supreme badass following an epic story arc, you get to be relatively insignificant in a much more humble setting, all while feeling lost and lonely in a very real way; that's some impressive storytelling. I do not appreciate, however, the fact that after finishing about half of the game and choosing to save and quit from the hub level, my progress was not saved. Sure, I could revisit the missions I'd unlocked, but I couldn't continue my progress... Which meant that I had to re-play one of the previous missions and then manually choose the next one from the hub map. What's even better is that I'll have to re-play the other three missions in order to actually finish the game! Yeah, that's just amazing; I'm so stoked for that. Ugh.

Aw, nuts...

Oh, Google Chrome version 4.0.249.78, I'd love to use you as my default web browser on my Windows 7 workstation, but you keep randomly overlapping the taskbar (it remains inaccessible even if I "restore down" your window!) and seem to have issues with various Facebook pages when other browsers don't :( I would've gone back to Internet Explorer 8, but Firefox 3.6's speed increase kinda made the decision for me.

But wait, there's more!

Traded my NFR copy of Gex for 3DO, along with Metroid Prime 1 and 2 for GameCube, and Sonic Heroes and Sonic Mega Collection Plus (both "Platinum Family Hits") for XBOX toward complete copies of Gex and Out Of This World for 3DO, as well as Fight For Life for Jaguar, and Axelay and Michael Jordan: Chaos In The Windy City for SNES.

...But I didn't stop there.

No, I went ahead and bought an Hori EX2 arcade stick (PC-compatible) and Fracture for my XBOX 360, as well as Star Fox Adventures for GameCube and NHL Stanley Cup for SNES - that last one was only $2.

Anyway, I've been thinking about how much I'd like an updated NHL game for PSP. As much fun as I'm having with NHL 07 after installing and tweaking fan-made roster updates and settings to make it more realistic, it'd be really nice to see a more streamlined menu system, better AI, and some bug-fixes.

Aside from being slow and unresponsive, is it really necessary to ask me if I want to use the autosave system every time, then warn me that i'm using the autosave system every time, then load the intro movie every time, then select game modes, leagues, loading options, a game file, and then confirm that it has loaded... EVERY TIME!? That's no less than eight painfully sluggish button presses before I can even look at the actual game menu! Why not just let me set the autosave options once, then have the system remember them? Why not have a load option on the main menu? Seems so obvious... The sluggish menu also makes tweaking rosters and lines unduly arduous, though that may be intentional to keep people buying yearly official updates... Except there haven't been any official updates in four years.

Better AI and bug-fixes would just make the whole experience a lot more fun; no more players who run away from a loose puck in the open, goalies who don't cover the short side with reasonable consistency, disappearing players, lightspeed passes flying around the rink, checks that literally send players soaring across the ice, and the list goes on... I'm not asking for a lot, am I? Even a port of the latest PS2 update with some tweaks to make it play a little more like the 360/PS3 version would do.

Oh Yeah!

Totally forgot to mention that I played through a whole bunch of XBOX 360 demos!

Dante's Inferno was kinda meh. Solid graphics, silly exposition, derivative gameplay... Nothing really wrong with it, I guess.

Dark Void was pretty cool... Until I wasn't using my jetpack anymore. I did appreciate that I was allowed to use my jetpack in a cramped hallway, promptly fly into a wall, and die upon impact. Maybe once it hits the bargain bin...

And I finally dipped into the indie game pool and checked-out I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES!!!1. It was fun for a few minutes, and then it got very weird. Arkedo Series - 03 PIXEL! was very interesting; I love the aesthetic, but the gameplay was a little dry. Leave Home was just plain cool.

I don't know what came over me...

I stumbled across a new copy of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, so I bought it. I also bought Saints Row 2 (new for 360, $25) and de Blob (new, $19), and I'm looking for OutRun 2006: Coast 2 Coast... I didn't get around to buying it after seeing it everywhere for years, and now it's suddenly nowhere to be found! Regardless, I've now officially spent too much money on games this month :(

What have I done!?

I bought Night Trap for SEGA CD 32X today.

I'm not sure what I should be more ashamed of; that I bought a copy of Night Trap on any system, or that I now have all five SEGA CD 32X games.

Discontinued

I bought Metroid Prime Trilogy for Wii because it started disappearing around town once Nintendo announced they'd stopped making it. I also noticed copies of New Super Mario Bros. Wii in white cases while I was out, and mistakenly assumed that's what the new shipment looked like; turns out they were just display copies, but I had already informed some friends in the retail end of things that new shipments were in white plastic... Oops.

I also snagged complete copies of Afro Samurai and Halo 3 ODST for 360 together for $50. Considering that ODST is still going for $65 used in most places, I think I did alright.

Life's getting busy again, and I wish I at least had the time to finish-up Wario Land: Shake It!... I also wish I could choose between Intel's Core i7 860 and 920. The 5-series platform (860) seems to be heading more so toward the mainstream market while the X-series platform (920) seems to be heading toward an increasingly multi-core market... I just can't decide.

Alternatives

New acquisitions: Golvellius for Master System (way better looking than the NES Zelda games, much more ecclectic in terms of gameplay, and fricking hard!) and Street Fighter II' Champion Edition for PC Engine (just because it's amazing to see such a great port that no one thought possible). Still looking for Golden Axe Warrior and considering Zillion II for Master System.

Different

Things I don't like about my QuickSilver 2002 Power Mac G4:

• Can't play HD Flash video.
• I don't like Finder as much as Windows' Start Menu.
• Mac OS X's default keyboard shortcuts mostly suck.
• There still isn't a maximise button, is there?

Things I do like about my QuickSilver 2002 PowerMac G4:

• Everything else.

So I guess I could become a full-fledged Mac user with a Windows PC for specific tasks (gaming and Windows service, mostly); all I'd really have to do is adust to the Mac OS X workflow and buy a more powerful machine... Except I haven't really cared all that much for any Mac case designs since the iMac G4s and the QuickSilvers.

Ergh

Eternal Darkness gets better, and restarting actually made the first third of the game much more enjoyable, as I had a better idea of what the hell I was doing... Though this phenomenon casts an unflattering light on how the game establishes itself. Essentially, we have a unique game with an interesting presentation that leaves you hanging when it comes to gameplay and story. Once you slog through the first few chapters, things don't make much more sense, but they do get more manageable and thus far more entertaining. I've got three chapters to go, and I'm coming to the conclusion that I'm playing a disjointed but clever Resident Evil clone with super powerful melee weapons. None of these obseravtions sound particularly flattering, but I'm actually having fun and I can see why so many people felt this game was underappreciated in its day.

I also sat down with Majora's Mask last night and got to the boss of Great Bay Temple... Only to realise that I was woefully unprepared to defeat him. Thanks to the timed nature of the game, it looks like I'll have to redo the entire dungeon after hunting-down masks, jars, fairies, and heart pieces elsewhere in the game. I really hate wasting time like that.

And finally, a local video game shop is relocating, so I stopped by their old place over the weekend and came away with Pitall II for 2600 and Berzerk (w/overlay) for Vectrex. They'd just recieved a Jaguar CD, but it was suppoesdly already spoken for :\

Brilliant.

Eternal Darkness has no checkpoints or auto-save feature, and doesn't bother to prompt you to save your progress. I was just about finished the fourth chapter (about a third of the way through the game) when I was killed unexpectedly and forced to start the entire game over... That's not fun. I think I'm gonna go play something else instead.

Mano-a-mano

I finished Assassin's Creed II with most of the achievements, and it was great! Right up there with Brütal Legend as a serious game-of-the-year contender, as far as I'm concerned. I have a few complaints, but don't let them dissuade you from checking this game out. First, teaching the player a relatively tricky new technique during a timed mission that cannot be restarted while surrounded by numerous platforms that are likely to interfere with that technique is bad design; thankfully, that mission is optional. Second (and this one contains some big spoilers), whoever wrote the dialogue for the scenes surrounding your fistfight with the Pope (yes, a fistfight with the Pope!) should be fired. We went from intriguing and beautiful science fiction/history/conspiracy story to big dumb action movie for one of this epic game's pivotal scenes, and it just felt so very wrong; it didn't completely ruin the experience for me, but it certainly was disappointing.

I've started playing Eternal Darkness, and after the first two chapters, I'm wondering what all of the hype is about. The dialogue is painful, the story is barely cohesive so far, and combat is pretty frustrating... Maybe it gets better later.

I've been on a bit of a Klonoa binge lately. Since picking-up the Wii remake of the original PlayStation game, I've tracked-down the PS2 sequel, as well as the two Game Boy Advance releases. These are beautiful games, and reminiscent of Ristar in terms of gameplay.

Ooh, and I got to play with a PSX DVR the other day! A local shop got one in, but wants $500 for it :(

I'd love to see something like Broadcom's Crystal HD chip as an add-in card for older computers (especially my Power Mac G4). The ability to play HD Flash videos would make just about every computer from 2000 on capable of functioning as a solid day-to-day workstation.

Speaking of old computers, I got Soul Reaver running on Windows 7, but it stutters so badly that it's pretty much unplayable. Now I'm debating whether I should shell-out for the Dreamcast version instead of having to hook-up my Windows 98 SE machine to play it...