Ploughing

Space Marine is awesome. I breezed through RAAM's Shadow... It was alright; nothing all that special. I'm also already about a third of the way through Space Marine (which is an awesome game). Playing through Cave Story for the third time (first was the original release, then WiiWare, now Steam); last boss is giving me trouble.

P.S. Jamestown is great.

P.P.S. Space Marine is awesome ;)

Where to begin...

There've been so many sales lately, I was having a hard time keeping this blog up-to-date with what I'd bought... Here's what I can remember since my last update:

Steam:

• Alice: Madness Returns
• Bulletstorm
• Duke Nukem Forever: Hail To The Icons Parody Pack and The Doctor Who Cloned Me
• Hard Reset
• Mass Effect 1 and 2
• Overlord Complete Pack
• RAGE
• Serious Sam HD: Gold Edition
• Torchlight
• Space Marine

Android:

• Age Of Zombies
• Can Knockdown 2
• BackStab HD
• Blow Up
• Fruit Ninja
• Heavy Gunner 3D
• Homerun Battle 3D
• Hyper Jump
• Flick Golf!
• Flight Control
• Jelly Defense
• NFL Rivals
• Puffle Launch
• Reckless Getaway
• Reckless Racing PLAY
• SketchBook Mobile
• Sleepy Jack
• SoundHound
• Spirit
• Tetris
• TileStorm HD
• Toki Tori

XBOX 360:

• After Burner: Climax
• Elf Squad 7
• Gears Of War 3: RAAM's Shadow
• Prince Of Persia: The Forgotten Sands
• Samurai Shodown Sen
• Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine - Uncaged Edition

PS3:

• MotorStorm: Apocalypse
• Yakuza 4

In other news, my Nexus S is now running the official release of Android 4.0.3, and something is killing the battery; disabling the Google+ and Google Talk apps seems to have remedied the problem. Otherwise, sweet :)

Thirds

I've been distracted again... All these sales... Awesome games for pennies.

I'm currently a third of the way through Braid (noticed I'd lost my saved game in the console transfer; started over), Cave Story+, Rayman: Origins, Serious Sam: The First Encounter HD, and Trine.

I've given-up on Far Cry 2, and I stopped playing Mortal Kombat when the second Shao Kahn battle got super-cheap.

I'll post about all the awesome Android Market stuff when the sale's over.

Perhaps I'm simply ignorant...

The 1.0.4 patch for the Android port of Puzzle Quest 2 greatly improved performance, and the game feels almost too smooth now! My dirk-plus-poison weapon combo is dominating enemies, but it's still fun :)

My brother picked-up a Samsung Galaxy Infuse 4G... it's big, and it's also very fast; like, 10Mbps fast! Kinda makes me sad that my Nexus S is only getting 1~2Mbps on a similar network... different companies, but both apparently use the same protocols :(

Literally slept on it...

Long story short, I literally slept through yesterday's Steam deals and missed the chance to get Back to the Future: The Game, The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, Serious Sam HD: Gold Edition for super-cheap... Damnit.

Rage is $30 today; hrmmm...

Buhbye, social life!

Rayman: Origins is everything I'd hoped it would be; buy it; forget everything else... Except for Mortal Kombat. Ho-lee-shit, this is what a fighting game should be! The learning curve is fun, the story mode is fantastic, and the fanservice is pure joy. The $70 it was going for new was steep, but the $35 I paid for a PS3 copy is a steal; I will be buying the DLC.

Everything else is on hold, despite the incredible sales on Steam right now. I've already picked-up The Oddboxx and the third season of Sam & Max... and I'm teetering on Alice: Madness Returns, Cave Story+, Dead Island, Hard Return, and Space Marine. Rage is also on sale, but $45 isn't cheap enough for me to buy it well before I'll have any chance to play it.

Out Of Control

I've been stopping by an indie game shop by my work every now and again since the 15th, hoping they've ordered a copy of Rayman: Origins for 360. Turns out their suppliers aren't offering it, so I checked out another indie shop not too far away and they had it... So I bought it... And King Of Fighters XIII for 360, Mortal Kombat for PS3, as well as Boom Blox, Kirby's Return To Dreamland, and Sonic Colors for Wii.

There is no way I have enough to time to master this stack of fighting games, let alone get any good at them. I need a plan, and I'm thinking that after I get Assasin's Creed: Brotherhood out of the way, I'm avoiding all open-world/sandbox games, RPGs, strategy games, and the like until I plough through some of these single player titles.

Man...

I remember, when I first started my current sysadmin position a few years ago, an employee accidentally deleting a database. The database software had the "delete" and "delete all" buttons right next to each other, so I didn't really blame the employee.

I was about a third of the way through Puzzle Quest 2 and had developed a pretty killer Assassin character when I accidentally deleted him. I really only play the game on the subway ride to and from work, and I happened to be particularly tired on my way in that day... Whoever put the "delete hero" button next to the "back" button and made the deletion confirmation screen look exactly like any other confirmation screen in the game deserves a real good smack upside the head.

Didn't get Rayman: Origins the other day 'cause my local indie shop didn't order any... I really hope that game's successful :(

Right, it's an alpha...

The latest version of Puzzle Quest 2 for Android seems to make everything feel a bit snappier.

The Voxatron alpha is fantastic, but awfully short; looking forward to more!

Amnesia and Justine are triumphs of game design.

Escape Goat is really fun.

Far Cry 2 is still not grabbing me.

The Resistance 3 demo was boring.

Rayman: Origins is sweet; forget Modern Warfare 3, Skyrim,  Skyward Sword, etc... I'm buying the new Rayman.

No dogs jumping through windows...

I completed Amnesia (and the spiffy little Justine DLC), and I loved it! The game didn't make me go to bed with the lights on or anything, but I found it really intense. It was a nice change of pace to be helpless and have to hide in the face of danger, and to experience scares that didn't rely on surprise. I really dug the Lovecraftian themes and exploring the castle, but what really won me over was the balance of the gameplay; stay in the light or lose your sanity, hide from enemies in the dark, don't look at enemies for too long... Those design decisions force you to light rooms strategically, remember where you came from, and rely on the sound design. I highly recommend this one.

Hallowe'en

Far Cry 2 sits untouched since my last post.

I started Castlevania: Legacy Of Darkness on N64 for Hallowe'en... So far it mostly looks bad, sports a horrible camera, the jumping mechanics are terrible, and the main character lacks a whip. That wasn't a good start for a Castlevania title, so I considered spending some quality time with Silent Hill 2 and Jack Bros. to keep in the spirit, but they failed to hold my attention for long.

Ended-up taking advantage of Steam's Hallowe'en sale and snagged Amnesia, Costume Quest, Dead Space 1 and 2, and the Penumbra Collection. Held-off on The Binding Of Isaac for no real reason, but ended-up picking it up as part of The Humble Voxatron Debut. So Amnesia is awesome, Voxatron is a whole different kind of awesome, and I haven't really played anything else since...

...Except for Puzzle Quest 2, which was recently released for Android! It's slow, unresponsive, and buggy, but hot damn, is it ever fun! So glad to finally have it on a portable platform :)

Not gonna make a pun...

Far Cry 2 is quickly getting on my nerves with the random encounters, mounted weapon aiming, and lack of any compelling narrative whatsoever since the opening scene... Which is sad because I had really high hopes for this one, and it feels like it's so close to being awesome.

Whoops...

Completely forgot to mention that Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes and Wizorb on XBLIG are amazing, while Rochard was a pleasant surprise and Sideway: New York turned-out to be only pretty good on PSN.

Kinda started Far Cry 2 on PC last night, and it's strangely compelling... A gorgeous map and solid gunplay hampered by a ridiculous scenario and some mildly frustrating gameplay mechanics (saving progress, fighting the effects of malaria) even-out to be a very pretty game that keeps me coming back for more... More of what, I'm not sure yet. I doubt I'll finish this one, but I'm not ready to put it down just yet either.

Duke Nukem, Forever!

I finished the single-player campaign of Duke Nukem Forever, and it was killer! That was some proper, oldschool, circle-strafing FPS! It's definitely an outdated game in terms of design, and the tone and environments are barely cohesive, but it's a perfect iteration on Duke Nukem 3D: Solid graphics, tasteless "humour", visceral weapons, and awesome environmental interactivity (the ego system is genius!). The quick load times and extra weapon slots of the PC version make it the platform of choice, and the $10~$30 price tag is more than worth it. I was bothered by the numerous negative reviews I saw around the Internet though... How is this game a failure? It could use some more polish and it isn't an industry-changing revelation despite apparently common unrealistic expectations, but it's a complete and enjoyable product that hearkens back the era in which it it was born. Duke Nukem Forever a relic loaded with history and nostalgic value, and that's worth much more than a write-off by the gaming press.

So far, so good...

I'm about a third of the way through Duke Nukem Forever (Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood is still on the backburner), and it's pretty good! I'm waiting to see why so many people hated this one so much... Sure, many aspects of the design are pretty dated, the graphics aren't as pretty as Crysis 2's, and the humour is particularly crude, but then that's kinda par for the course for a Duke Nukem game; they've never had the most ingenious design (gunplay, story, etc...), greatest graphics, or any sense of taste. What makes the series enjoyable is the campiness and interactivity, and Forever has both locked-down... So far.

Too Much

A complete copy of Snatcher for SEGA CD is going for $250!? Damnit! I knew I should've picked it up at $100 a few years ago...

Just finished the Protector Trials and Minerva's Den. The former was a bit of a chore, but the latter was fantastic; that's what DLC should be! Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood has been on hold in the meantime.

Picked-up Duke Nukem Forever for $10 on Steam, Child Of Eden and Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 (360), The Ico & Shadow Of The Colossus Collection (PS3), as well as Ghost In The Shell, Pandemonium 2, and Shipwreckers! for PSX. Traded-in my broken 360 Pro (w/HDD, headset, power adapter, Ethernet cable, and box), Ico and Shadow Of The Colossus (PS2), Super Street Fighter IV and NHL 10 (360), and a stack of XBOX games toward some of that.

It's all about me.

I completed Gears Of War 3's campaign; good game; many questions left unanswered; Limited Edition packaging is sweet.

I earned all 85 stars in Cordy a while back.

I tried to get into Immercenary on 3DO, but it's really hard.

I passed-up a mint-condition, complete copy of Guardian Heores for Saturn; my pitted, disc-only copy will do.

I'm half-way done the Protector Trials in Bioshock 2, and I'm getting bored... But I want the bonus gene tonic awarded upon completion before I start Minerva's Den in earnest.

...Aaannnd I'm slowly getting back into the groove of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

Deluge

Installing the broken Pro's HDD in a working Elite and transferring everything to a USB flash drive, then transferring the contents of the USB drive to the new S worked like a charm! I also bought Gears Of War 3 (Limited Edition), NHL 11 (it was under $10), Outland, Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition, and Trenched. Will be picking-up Child Of Eden, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet, and Stacking: The Lost Hobo King shortly... Holding-off on Catherine, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Duke Nukem Forever, and Space Marine for the immediate future; just way too much to play right now.

Patience

Yesterday, I bought a glossy 250GB XBOX 360 S, new, for $197.99 when I stumbled across an unexpected sale. Today, I borrowed a Hard Drive Transfer Cable, but it doesn't seem to be working. Tomorrow, I'm going to install my old hard drive on another console and see if copying everything over to a USB flash drive will work... I'm not spending $15~$30 on that damned cable.

Shopping

Went shopping...

PC: Fallout (original packaging), Jedi Knight, Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy
Wii: Boom Blox Bash Party, Donkey Kong Country Returns
XBOX: SEGA GT Online
3DO: Blade Force, Captain Quazar, Immercenary, Killing Time, PO'ed, Space Hulk: Vengeance of the Blood Angels, Star Fighter, Way Of The Warrior
NES: Solar Jetman

I already had the discs for PO'ed and Way Of The Warrior, but these are complete copies :)

Speaking of shopping, I bought Cordy for Android, and it's fantastic! Gameplay is a mix of Sonic and Bionic Commando, the graphics are gorgeous, and the replay value is immense; I'm actually going for the full 85 stars (completion, collection, and speed) with this one! Best $2 I've spent in a long time.

Trying new things...

The Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine demo is amazing; I will be buying this game.

The Cordy demo has me buying my first mobile game.

Speaking of mobile games, here's what I'm playing on my phone right now: Angry Birds (all three, up to date), Bonsai Blast, Cordy, Eternity Warriors ('cause I can stop its background services; can't stop Gun Bros.'), Fruit Ninja, Gem Miner, Jewels, Lane Splitter, NinJump, Pumpkins vs. Monsters, Replica Island, Rocket Bunnies, Slice It!, Speedx 3D, Tetris, Words With Friends, and YooNinja. Need more titles with production values like Cordy that have actual depth and aren't just arcade/grind/puzzle games!

Holds it, holds it, HOLDS IT!!!

I bought Bastion on Steam, it is awesome, and I will be replaying it.

I held-off on From Dust after hearing about the lacklustre PC port.

I'll hold-off on a 3DS until that screen-scratching issue is resolved.

I'll hold-off on a new 360 until the price drops, now that the PS3's price has dropped.

Got Older

Haven't had much time to play games; been busy having epic birthday celebrations.

Did snag a copy of Pangya for PSP though, and found someone to solder the display leads on one of my Virtual Boys! The demos of Bastion, Catherine, From Dust, and Trenched are pretty awesome... Still haven't replaced my 360.

Built a new server at work: Dual Xeon E5620, 32GB of RAM, over 5TB of hot-swappable hard drives, redundant power supply... Kinda sorta overkill, maybe, but whatever, I still came in under budget :)

Bullets

Finished Crysis 2; it was awesome; all of my previous criticisms stand.

I always thought Bioshock was a gorgeous game; Minerva's Den looks hideous after playing Crysis 2 :(

Still avoiding Lair.

Found a copy of Silent Hill 2 of PC.

Really tempted to finally try Dwarf Fortress after reading this.

Not looking forward to replacing my XBOX 360, as it will mean buying Bastion, Catherine, Child Of Eden, Outland, Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition, Trenched, and likely a few more I'm forgetting at the moment... Gonna be expensive :(

Damnit!

I snagged a complete copy of Jack Bros. (Japanese) and a loose copy of Virtual Fishing for Virtual Boy, but now all three of my remaining systems are failing and the guys who were doing repair services seem to have closed-up shop :( Decent games though, albeit somewhat simplistic.

Almost done with Crysis 2. It's still a gorgeous game, I still feel like a badass, the acting is still a little weak, and the story got pretty flimsy for a while there... The good outweighs the bad though.

Badass.

About half-way through Lair, and it's still disappointing.

About half-way through Crysis 2, and it keeps getting better. Some of the acting's pretty bad (e.g. Gould) and the narrative's kinda broken (poor cohesion, lacking exposition, tired clichés), but the gameplay is solid (dynamic, accessible, visceral; makes me feel like a real badass) and the graphics are gorgeous.

BFF?

The Duke Nukem Forever demo was pretty cool! That preview delivered exactly what I was expecting before I read all those scathing reviews; a ridiculously mindless FPS with good-but-not-great graphics and a pointlessly interactive environment... Much like Duke Nukem 3D. My only real complaints are with the weapon and health systems (why did they copy Halo!?), and the linearity of the levels. Perhaps I won't be picking this one up at full price, but I do intend to buy it.

In the mean time, I was gonna sit down with Crysis 2, but then I heard about this, so I won't be playing it 'til Monday.

So I finally got around to finishing that free first episode of Back To The Future: The Game... Aaannnd seeing as how that didn't last very long, I'm thinking it's time to check-out Minerva's Den.

Really, anything to avoid Lair ;)

Oh, and that G5 is still sketchy after getting a less-dead battery in there... Wheee!

Neutered

So I was able to get that Power Mac G5 running stably after disabling the second CPU and getting the setting to stick... Didn't have the right bit to remove the heat sinks and do it physcially. Unfortunately, shutting down caused everything to kick back in, so I'm thinking dead battery. It's prolly worth the ~$10 to get the thing running as a single 1.8GHz machine; could be worth a couple hundred dollars on craigslist that way; won't be able to run HD Flash video though.

P.S. Outland is an awesome game.

Misunderstood?

Jikandia's a safe and fun little grind... The visuals, gameplay, and writing are all vaguely reminiscent of other titles, the one-line-at-a-time dialogue is sort of annoying, and the $30 price point seems a little steep, but it's not at all a bad game.

Uncharted 2 left me feeling about the same.

Anyway, I started Lair... If not for the analog control update, I would've turned it off after the first level. The art ranges from gorgeous to hideous, transitions between menus, cutscenes, and gameplay modes are noticeably unpolished, the dialogue is ridiculously contrived, enemies can be particularly difficult to see, and the story is painfully underdeveloped. I can definitely understand how disappointed people must've been when the game was first released, being forced to slog through that with SIXAXIS motion controls.

So removing a CPU on a Power Mac G5 is right up there with disassembling a Nintendo Virtual Boy in terms of arbitrary complexity.

Stuff

Got Crysis 2 Limited Edition for PC (gorgeous) for $20, Guardian Heroes for Saturn (badass) for $50, and Shining Tears and Shining Force EXA (haven't played them yet; can't wait to hear the god-awful voice acting I've read about) for PS2 for $13 each.

El Shaddai (PS3 demo; 360 still broken) is literally insane. Almost finished Uncharted 2. TITS has been kinda boring; gonna try Jikandia next.

A friend's Power Mac G5 bit the dust; looks like one of the CPUs is bad; gonna try disabling it.

Got a motherboard from a Dell Vostro 230 replaced under warranty; currently stress testing.

Trying to puzzle-out the best combination of server hardware and software upgrades to accommodate a major database upgrade at work... Not looking too good, given my budget.

Was pretty stoked to play Duke Nukem Forever, but the reviews are having me consider sticking to Crysis 2 for the time being.

Cheap.

Kirby's Epic Yarn, complete and in great condition, for $29.99... Got it.

TITS

Tried-out The 3rd Birthday, Legend Of Heroes: Trails In The Sky, and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together on PSP... I had no idea what was going on in the first one, the magic system tutorial in the second one wasn't exactly the most helpful set of instructions, and the third reminded me that I don't have the spare time to really appreciate the strategy genre.

Really, more than anything else, I've been playing Pumpkins Vs. Monsters on Android; sweet, sweet game :)

Otherwise, I've been putting together a new server and multi-WAN routers at work... Good times.

I can feel it calling in the air tonight...

The over-the-air Android 2.3.4 update didn't work on my Nexus S, but that may have been my fault; I didn't know how to manipulate the recovery menu, and ended-up pulling the battery... Not the brightest move, I know, but I was literally half-asleep when the notification popped-up. Anyway, I grabbed the update from Google's servers today and ran it manually. I'm really happy with the phone (even more so since installing Swype), and really have only one complaint; the in-call volume is really quiet, even at the loudest volume setting! It's fine in most cases, but if I'm walking down a city street, I can barely make-out the other person's voice, let alone what they're saying :(

I haven't touched Uncharted 2 since my last post, but I did develop a brief addiction to the demo of Gem Miner on my phone.

I may have some SEGA Saturn Twin Sticks on their way, as well as a couple of Dreamcast games (Armada and Project Justice).

Oh, and the Unity shell for Ubuntu (I just installed 11.04) is pretty rad... Like, actually radical. The new interface took me a day or so of casual use to get comfortable with, and now I'm really digging it.

Upgrade

My third XT720 started sapping batteries and stopped connecting to the mobile network... Awesome. After trying my provider's third-party vendor, corporate store, head office, and warranty replacement centre, they finally let me upgrade to a Nexus S... It's pretty :)

I played through Uncharted last week, and it was fun, but nothing earth-shattering. The story got a little silly, the cover system was frustrating, the gunplay was kinda boring, and the jumping controls were too loose... Not exactly fantastic in a game primarily comprised of cover-based shooting and jumping puzzles. I did enjoy the dialogue though. Anyway, I'm well into Uncharted 2 now, and while the camera and scripted events are hugely improved and supremely impressive, the rest of the game feels about the same... Naughty Dog may have peaked at the first Jak and Daxter game.

Back On The Scene

New acquisitions:

• 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand (360)
• Metroid: Other M (Wii)
• Need For Speed: Nitro (Wii)
• Chronicles Of Pern: Dragon Riders (DC)
• Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero (PS)
• Pandemonium! (PS)
• Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes (TGCD)
• Dark Seed (PC)
• Starship Titanic (PC)

I've only had time to sit down with Legend Of Heroes, Mortal Kombat Mythologies, Need For Speed, and Pandemonium! so far, and while I'm pretty happy with all of them, there're different reasons behind each...

Dragon Slayer: Legend Of Heroes seems to be a pretty straightforward Japanese RPG from Falcom, and their Ys series has me on a bit of a Falcom kick. Considering that Trails In the Sky (the sixth Legend Of Heroes game) was just released in North America for PSP, I thought I'd look into its roots with the only other English release in the series; it was a nice surprise to discover that Faxanadu (NES) and Sorcerian (PC) are also part of the Dragon Slayer series... Yeah, there're over 25 games if you count all of the sub-series :) Ooh, and I noticed an allusion to the 1984 Bruce Cockburn song "Lovers In A Dangerous Time" in Legend Of Heroes! So the pop-culture references of the recent Falcom translations (e.g lyrics from Hall and Oates' "Maneater" in one of the PSP Ys games) is apparently a bit of a tradition...

Anyway, Mortal Kombat Mythologies is friggin' hard. Interesting game with some really fun sequences, but jumping puzzles and limited lives 'n continues were a very bad idea.

Need For Speed: Nitro is fun, and so far totally worth the $8 I spent on it.

Pandemonium! is just as awesome as I remembered; fantastic platformer.

Death

Been busy; released a new CD with my band; that was prolly the biggest time sink.

Anyway, I've finished Ys I & II Chronicles. It was great fun; reminiscent of Half-Minute Hero, which, I guess, is therefore reminiscent of Ys Book I & II ;) That brings me up to speed on the English releases of the Ys series... And I want more. Here's hoping someone ports and translates Ys IV and V soon!

My 360 RROD'd... Gonna buy a new one; might splurge and get the Kinect bundle in anticipation of Double Fine's new Sesame Street game. Was almost done Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood when it went.

Seriously considering tracking-down an iPad to play Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP.

Explored m0n0wall and pfSense as router solutions at work.

What else is new... Stumbled across a copy of Guardian Heroes for SEGA Saturn, but the owner of the shop didn't want to sell it to me because it was in such poor condition.

Oh! I'm on my third XT720 and second SIM card; all under warranty... I still dig the phone, especially considering what I paid for it.

QA

So the free first episode of the Back To The Future game will only let me play once before the "Play" button stops working... I have to reinstall the game to play again. This issue has been discussed on TellTale's forums, and the best solution seems to be running the game in compatibility mode for Windows XP... Yeah, a game that was released in 2011 needs to be run in way to maximise its compatibility with an operating system from 2001.

I downloaded the Crysis 2 demo and was prompted to make an account in order to play; this process is apparently powered by GameSpy, which should be totally awesome because I already have a GameSpy account. Unfortunately, the game doesn't recognise my GameSpy account, and won't let me make a new account because my e-mail address is already associated with my GameSpy account...Wheee!!!

On a more positive note, Ys I & II Chronicles on PSP is fantastic!

So Busy

I've been absolutely swamped lately... Mostly with sysadmin work (we're quickly outgrowing our current infrastructure here) and recording sessions with one of my bands.

I did, however, manage to clean-up the following computers:

• Inspiron 1150 (sound and USB don't work... Click the link... No, seriously) for a friend so she could do Photoshop work while her main laptop is in repair.
• Inspiron 8600 (1.5GHz Pentium M, 1.2GB DDR333, GeForce FX Go5200) that I got for free.
• A killer custom desktop: ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP, Core 2 Duo E6750, 2GB 800MHz DDR2, 320MB BFG GeForce 8800 GTS OC; three SATA hard drives totaling 800GB; a sweet Lian-Li mid-tower chassis. This one was also free; not sure what to install on it though... Seems like a good opportunity to revisit Linux or BSD.

Oh, and I'm on the last battle in Ys III, which is good because Ys I&II ships today :)

Kinected

Looks like I'm getting a Kinect... Damn you, Tim Schafer.

Anyway, I'm about half-way through Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, and it's amazing, and overwhelming, and holy crap.

REAL

Having a nice little conversation with a supposed former 3DO employee right over here.

Oooh, I like it when they squeal!

I finished Epic Mickey last night... It's a good game, and I might even play through it again some day to see everything I missed, but it's just disappointing to see so much potential wasted.

Fans of Disney, 3D platformers, and exploration will find a lot to like there, and the game does tell one of the best Mickey Mouse stories I've seen since Runaway Brain, but there's also a lot to criticise in terms of gameplay design and consistency.

It's sad to see so many elements done right, only to be slapped together into a lacklustre final product.

Anyway, on to Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood...

Mindless?

I keep reading about how much mindless fun Bulletstorm is... Mindless? Really? The demo presented something more akin to a combination of The Club and MadWorld than a DOOM clone like Painkiller (Bulletstorm's predecessor) or Serious Sam... Or Will Rock ;) The latter games are mindless; the only real strategy there comes in the form of surviving vast hordes of enemies by employing twitch reflexes and simple resource management. Games like The Club, MadWorld, and presumably Bulletstorm are more about creatively stringing-together fast-paced and original combos while being keenly aware of your environment and how you interact with it.

Anyway, the Bulletstorm demo was a lot of fun, Killzone 3 is very pretty, and Epic Mickey is almost done... I can't say I'm really stoked about any of them though.

Christmas II

Stacking comes out this week... Which reminds me that I forgot to mention playing through Costume Quest: Grubbins On Ice over Christmas! It was wonderful! Stoked for Stacking!

Speaking of Christmas I finally got an OtterBox for my XT720 as well as Ninja Golf for my 7800... Yeah, both had to be imported from the States, and it took about a month longer than expected.

Wait, what? Oh, yeah, I did say Ninja Golf... A BRAND-NEW, SEALED COPY OF NINJA GOLF!!!

Gee, thanks...

Remember this computer? That client contacted me the other day looking to upgrade. We went with 64-bit Windows 7 Home Premium and a 60GB OCZ Vertex 2 SSD; the two Raptors became a RAID 0 scratch disk.

All was working beautifully until he plugged-in his LaCie 526; Windows wouldn't let him set it above 1280x720. Restarting, installing LaCie's monitor drivers, and even forcing the native resolution wouldn't work... I had him double-check every driver, setting, and OSD option, but we couldn't figure it out. I suspected Windows was treating the monitor as a TV, and instructed him to check the EDID setting while I was on the phone with him, but he couldn't find it.

I had him contact LaCie, and they promptly responded with a horribly written e-mail instructing him to contact Microsoft and download some nondescript patch for Windows 7 (yeah, just "download a patch to fix the issue") and let them know if he found a solution.

So I did some more reading and noticed that the EDID setting only appears if the monitor is receiving a digital signal. Since the client couldn't find the setting, I'm guessing the monitor was defaulting to DVI-A. I had him force it to DVI-D in the OSD, the EDID setting appeared, and when he changed it appropriately, Windows allowed the monitor's native 1920x1200 resolution.

LaCie should've been aware of such a possibility, especially for a customer who bought a $1500+ monitor.

Ys, Ys, Ys... And a Birthday

Ys VI is pretty good, but is a definite step backward in just about every regard after playing Ys Seven... And it really shows how little work Konami put into the PSP port when immediately followed by Ys III; it's easy to forget that they're running on the same engine! Ys III is very slick, and the gameplay mechanics keep things moving briskly. I don't think I've ever played an action RPG so fast-paced... I like it. A lot.

I bought a copy of the Sonic Adventure 2 Birthday Pack for Dreamcast, today... It's a pretty sweet package, plus I didn't own a copy of Sonic Adventure 2.

Oh, and the Bulletstorm demo's been sitting on my PS3 (Silver XBL at the moment) since it came out... No time to play :(

Not the band...

I scored a complete copy of Dragon Force for Saturn (well, the warranty card and foam insert are missing) for $100. While I've long been aware of it as one of the more sought-after games for that console, the game never really appealed to me; I've rarely made the time to explore real-time strategy titles outside of the Shining Force series and Blizzard's entries in the genre. Upon starting Dragon Force with minimal preparation, I quickly discovered it isn't a traditional strategy game. There's this interesting hybridisation of slow-moving kingdom politics and super-fast-paced RTS battles. After about ten successful skirmishes and a handful of set-pieces, I decided that I should probably read the relatively thick game manual and start over... And I'm really looking forward to it :)

Oh, and I finished God Of War: Ghost Of Sparta and I'm at the final battle in Ys VI; both are solid titles and worth your time. Ventureland in Epic Mickey was lots of fun, but it's still only a shining moment in an otherwise disappointing game.

Almost done...

Picked-up 3D Dot Game Heroes, Flower, Noby Noby Boy, WipEout HD, and Yakuza 3 for PS3; can't think of many more that I'm itching to grab.

As for the general PS3 gaming experience so far, Flower is sublime, God Of War III is exactly what I expected (gorgeous, entertaining, and kinda pointless), the MotorStorm games are great fun, Noby Noby Boy is oddly endearing, and Uncharted is really engaging albeit rough around the edges (I hear the sequel fixes a lot of that).

I snagged a few demos as well: Hot Shots Golf: Out Of Bounds is solid, The Killzone 2 demo is nothing special, and the PixelJunk games were huge disappointments (I was really looking forward to Eden and Shooter).

I haven't done a proper tally yet, but the selection of PS3-exclusive titles feels kinda weak for a current-generation system; the XBOX 360 and the Wii really seem to be a step ahead. Don't get me wrong though; the PS3 is still an impressive console and worth owning, especially if you don't have a 360 ;)

Reflow

PS3 is fixed... Was still full of dust, even after the blasting I initially administered. Lessons learned: Open your PS3 when cleaning it, and become familiar with cooling-system activity.

$80 and an hour wait for a cleaning and reflow with a 60-day warranty seems reasonable.

I hope this lasts.

YLOD

For context, I spent a good five minutes or so blasting the system with compressed air before I even plugged it in last week, and I keep the console (like all of my consoles) on a hard surface in a well-ventilated area; I have a launch 360 in the same unit.

Anyway, I updated to 3.55, dissociated the console from previous owner's PSN account, formatted the HDD, registered on PSN, downloaded and installed some demos, streamed some TV, played a bunch of Uncharted, then YLOD... I'm guessing it didn't like that much continuous use :( When I unhooked everything to have a closer look, the system had literally coughed-up some massive dust bunnies while the fan was going; I had to tweeze them out through the vents. I removed the hard drive to see if it was at the root of issue (apparently HDD errors can also cause YLODs), but it won't even boot to the 'no hard drive' error screen... And my Uncharted disc is still in there.

I'm gonna take the thing to a particular local shop 'cause they have one of these; they supposedly charge ~$80. There're DIY fixes, but this isn't one I want to fuck around with.

Otherwise, it was a pretty swell week otherwise; Flower is a sublime game!

Library

Found each of the following PS3 titles (not "Greatest Hits") for under $20...

• Folklore
• Heavenly Sword
• inFamous
• Lair
• Motorstorm
• Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
• Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction
• Uncharted

My PS3 blacklog is probably about on par with that of every other console I own :)

I also happened upon copies of Full Throttle (PC) and Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (Jaguar).

URNot(red)E

Got the 60GB hardware-backward-compatible PS3 with two SIXAXIS controllers, a Wireless Keypad, two charging cables, and the following games:

• Assassin's Creed II
• Bionic Commando*
• Bioshock
• Bioshock 2
• Buzz! Quiz World (with four buzzers)
• Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• Dark Void*
• Demon's Souls*
• Dragon Age: Origins
• God Of War Collection
• God Of War III
• Golden Axe: Beast Rider*
• Grand Theft Auto IV
• Heavy Rain
• LittleBigPlanet
• ModNation Racers
• Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
• Motorstorm: Pacific Rift
• The Orange Box
• Red Dead Redemption
• Street Fighter IV
• Unreal Tournament III

(* = factory sealed)

I'll be flipping most of the games since I either already have them on another platform, would rather play them on Windows, or have little interest in keeping them... Demon Souls, the God Of War games, Heavy Rain, LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, MotorStorm, and Red Dead Redemption will likely be the only ones to make the cut.

I'd like to remove the system from the previous owner's PSN account before reformatting, but I can't connect to PSN unless I install the 3.55 system update (3.50 is currently installed). I'm hesitant to install the update after hearing all the horror stories about it neutering the optical drive and causing instabilities with previously-installed software... I'd hate to have to pay an extra $100+ just to get a refurbished model that lacks the hardware for which I specifically bought this model :(

Once again, not quite a month :)

So, Epic Mickey... I was talking about how the freedom of choice between countless solutions to the challenges of each area is overwhelming, and when the quests and platforming sections are good, oh man are they ever good! Unfortunately, the quests and platforming sections aren't always good... Actually, they're often downright boring and uninspired. Seriously, a lot of the content seems like it was just phoned-in, and has made me consider quitting the game altogether on more than one occasion. What keeps me going are the hints at something interesting down the line; those moments when everything just clicks and the bigger picture comes into focus pique my curiosity, and I end-up playing for another hour... At which point I've again grown tired of the vapid fetch quests and half-baked jumping puzzles and corridors.

I'm still not done Ys 6, though I am about to begin the endgame, point-of-no-return section. Y'see, my PSP's been somewhat neglected since I picked-up my new smartphone ;) It's a Motorola XT720 running Android 2.1, and while it's not exactly top-of-the-line or bleeding-edge stuff, it's still awfully swell.

On a bittersweet note, after nearly eight impressive years, my trusty Athlon XP 3200+ system is finally being retired (i.e. my parents are getting it, albeit somewhat stripped-down from its former glory), and I've built something new out of a fine selection of free parts... The result?

• Athlon 64 3500+
  
• ASUS A8V Deluxe
  
• 3GB DDR400 RAM (dual channel)
  
• 512MB AGP8X Radeon X1950 Pro
  
• SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS
  
• 80GB + 320GB SATA HDDs
  
• DVD+/-RW
  
• DVD-ROM
  
• Windows XP Pro x64
  

...And it's all in a slick-looking Cooler Master Centurion case!

One last thing: Looks like I'm getting a hardware-backwards-compatible 60GB PS3 with ~20 games from a buddy of mine! Sweet :)