What next?

Almost done Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, and it's just plain delightful; familiar but innovative, improving on many aspects of the series, and generally being the best Metroid-Light it can be. Looking forward to Half-Genie Hero, but kinda wishing it was portable.

Also, this guy at a flea market asked me for $80 for complete copies of Brain Dead 13 (v1.1) and Star Control II for 3DO because he had no idea... That's, like, $250 worth of stuff on a good day, but they weren't mint... I gave him $100.

Took me long enough...

Finished Risky's Revenge, and it was near-perfection. Every issue from the first game was addressed in the second. I found a couple of enemy designs to be problematic (the mermaids and skeletons slowed everything down to the point that it was better to just avoid them) and some of the fetch quests and story twists toward the end felt like filler (e.g. A coffee run!?), but it was still a good time. Just getting into Pirate's Curse now; so pretty!

This bodes well...

So I'm almost done Shantae, and it's great as long as I can play it on my 3DS and totally cheat by exploiting emulator savestates :\ Seriously, it's an incredible technical achievement with so much character... But so very, very broken from a design standpoint. It's like Metroid-light made stupidfrustratinghard to offset the lightness of the Metroidness.

I also got a little impatient and jumped-ahead to Risky's Revenge and Pirate's Curse to see what's up, and they seem to've fixed everything! Stoked.

Just terrible.

I picked-up a complete copy of Cave Story 3D because Cave Story is awesome and Cave Story 3D is kinda rare and sought-after. I'd heard mixed things about the 3DS remake, and... Well, they were being generous. That remake is offensive. I absolutely adore the original, and I guess 3D has some cool packaging, but yeah... No.

Convolution

Current plan:

1. Buy a New 3DS XL and a 32GB microSD card.
2. Transfer the contents of the 32GB SD card in my current 3DS XL to the New 3DS XL.
3. Put the 32GB SD card in my Wii U.
4. Transfer everything from my Wii to my Wii U.
5. Sell my 3DS XL with the originally-included 4GB SD card.
6. Use my Wii as a GameCube because cheap 480p.

Bouillabaisse

The nearly-five-year-old 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD in that Core i5 2500K system I mentioned a few posts back up-and-died yesterday; replaced it with a 128GB Samsung 840 EVO for $83... Amazing how prices have dropped.

Anyway, Shantae's labyrinths kick ass, but it's overworld seriously sucks; currently most excited about finding more baby warp squids so I can minimise dealing with that shit. I really hope the next two games have addressed this, 'cause they all look really pretty!

Also, Club Nintendo closeout! Gotta recommend Donkey Kong (Game Boy), EarthBound, Link's Awakening DX, Super Metroid and Yoshi's Island as must-play classics if you don't already have them. So far I've snagged Doc Louis's Punch-Out, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, and Minis on the Move with just over 500 coins left to blow.

Brutal!

Started playing the original Shantae in earnest and the difficulty curve is friggin' upside-down! The audiovisual design is absolutely gorgeous and the Metroid-style gameplay is solid, but the combat mechanics are problematic, to say the least... Can't wait to level-up some so I can actually enjoy what's on offer here and move-on in the series.

No, wait... Argh.

Azure Striker Gunvolt was totally my jam until it hit me with a mandatory boss-rush level... I hate that shit!

At least Super Mario 3D World and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker are downright delightful.

Wheee!

...But you know what is awesome on 3DS? Azure Striker Gunvolt! First Mega Man-style game I've been able to really get into since Rockman & Forte.

Argh.

Remember how I said Sonic Lost World on 3DS was swell? It's not. I was wrong. It blows. Hard. Like Sonic Adventure, certain styles of levels are fun... The other 75% of the game is painful.

You're kidding, right!?

Thought I was almost done Bravely Default, but it turns out I hafta play through it again... Not just a "new game+" kind of thing, but I actually hafta go redo a whole bunch of stuff; so I check an FAQ to see what other crap is in there, AND I HAFTA DO IT THREE MORE TIMES AFTER THAT!? FIVE FUCKING TIMES TO FINISH THE GAME! One of the most fun grinds I've experienced in years just stopped being fun, friends.

Anyway, Sonic Lost World on 3DS is pretty swell, Skullgirls is sweet (though not as polished as I expected), Shovel Knight is blowing me away (and I never really even liked Mega Man), and Super Time Force Ultra is kinda ridiculous.

Progress

Wrapped-up Legend of Grimrock II; game of the year, right there. Almost done with Bravely Default. Slogging through Metro 2033. Started Alien: Isolation; surprisingly rough around the edges (occasionally awful animation and scripting), but otherwise stunning in its presentation; into it.

Found a great deal on a brand new Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon - Core i5-4300U, 4GB 1600MHz DDR3, 128GB SSD, 14.0" 1440p IPS multi-touch screen, and 64-bit Windows 8.1 Pro for $999; down from $1739... Mentioned it to my brother, an then my mom bought it for me... Holy crap.

Vaguely

Bought LEGO City Undercover and Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker for Wii U, and Freedom Wars for Vita... Haven't had the time to play any of them, or Alien: Isolation, yet :( Finished Crysis 3; it was okay. Metro 2033 got really boring by the time I reached the Nazis; hasn't gotten better. Legend of Grimrock II and Bravely Default are still awesome.

I'm really not enjoying Symantec Backup Exec 2014.

Recently swapped a bunch of parts from various computers to assemble the following three:

• Core i5 2500K
• Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3 rev2.0
• 8GB 1600MHz DDR3 (dual channel)
• 1GB Radeon HD 5850
• 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD
• 1TB Seagate 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s HDD
• 64-Bit Windows 7 Ultimate

----------

• Core 2 Duo E6750
• ASUS P5K-E/WiFi-AP
• 4GB 800MHz DDR2 (dual channel)
• 320MB 550MHz GeForce 8800 GTS
• 160GB + 3x320GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDDs
• 32-bit Windows Vista Business

----------

• Core 2 Duo E6750
• ASUS P5K
• 4GB 800MHz DDR2 (dual channel)
• 512MB Radeon HD 3870
• 250GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD
• 32-bit Windows Vista Business

...And now I feel vaguely productive.

Deal or No Deal?

$330 for ~$550 worth of stuff (XBOX One, Assassin's Creed Black Flag and Unity, and a $50 gift card or another game) would be very tempting if I actually wanted either of those games on that platform... The PS4 deals are even less tempting :\

I did snag Alien: Isolation plus all seven pieces of DLC for $55 at the humble Store though, which is MUCH better than the $100, store-specific pre-order bullshit they tried at launch.

Finally moving forward with Crysis 3 and Metro 2033 again after getting snagged on some particularly tricky save-points... Bravely Default is still awesome, and Legend of Grimrock II is getting tougher... Or maybe I'm just not doing it right.

Also...

...I bought Bayonetta 2 the day it was released and nearly a week later, a boxed Dreamcast broadband adapter... And if I'm not playing Legend of Grimrock II at home, I'm playing Bravely Default on the go.

Can't Stop

Seriously, I can't stop playing Legend of Grimrock II. Everything else is on hold when I'm at home. It's a really, really good game.

Savings!

So I bought a brand-new, $560 MSRP, factory-overclocked (1006/1059MHz, up from 863/900MHz) GeForce GTX 780 for $340, and it included $150 of free games - Three Splinter Cell games (Double Agent, Conviction, and Blacklist) and Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel. I literally just saved $370, or ~52%, off retail.

Spendin' Money

I want to buy Bayonetta 2 and Hyrule Warriors, mostly because I want to support the Wii U... The thing is, they're both selling at a premium price ($65 here in Canada) and I don't actually enjoy those styles of action game. For example, while I haven't finished any of them, I've played every Devil May Cry game, and they're just so silly, thumb-cramp-inducing, and drawn-out in their combat. DmC was probably my favourite, and I quickly sold my copies of the first three... That's probably blasphemy... Also, Otogi was cool... Ninja Gaiden kinda blows... God of War is more my pace when it comes to that genre ;) Same goes for the whole Dynasty Warriors/N3/whatever style; I always got too bored before too long to bother sticking around.

D'ah well.

Have I ever mentioned that I loved S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl, bugs 'n all? Did I mention that Clear Sky almost turned me off the whole genre completely and I'm afraid to touch Call of Pripyat? Or how I initially thought Metro 2033 was much more similar to S.T.A.L.K.E.R. than it actually is? No? Huh. Well... Yeah. Finally got around to Metro (not Redux), and it's kinda exactly what I've been itching for. Despite being really rough around the edges, it's still just a fun, atmospheric, story-driven FPS that's neither too easy nor too unforgiving. I'm kinda upset that I waited so long to play it, but also really looking forward to Last Light all of a sudden :)

Ooh! Also! GeForce 780s've been slashed to, like, $300! Video card upgrade time! I'm looking at the ZOTAC GeForce GTX 780 AMP! Edition 'cause it's regularly, like, $560. I'm still really happy with my Radeon HD 5850, but I've got a good home for that one, too.

No, I don't gotta...

I played the first Pokémon game when it was released, and I found it to be simplistic, but solid. I didn't really play another title in the series until X/Y... Which are kinda awful. I was expecting them to be slick, streamlined, and kinda perfect by now; instead I found a confused mess of a game designed to literally waste time. I get it; you gotta keep those kids occupied, so make the messages, menus, and prompts as slow and convoluted as possible; but man, when there's like 750 monsters to catch and a number of incredibly deep subsystems to manage, it all just feels to brutally inefficient.

Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS is pretty cool though, I guess.

Paradise?

Why didn't anyone tell me Need for Speed: Most Wanted (2012) was so much fun!? I'd played every Need for Speed (and Burnout) game except for this one, and I'm not sure why I held-off on it. I guess I did keep hearing it was pretty flawed, multiplayer-focused, and simply not as good as Most Wanted (2010)... But none of that takes away from how much fun it is! Yeah, the controls're too floaty, the rubber-band gameplay makes races mostly pointless, the HUD map is almost useless, the DLC isn't worth $30~$45, and the soundtrack is godawful more often than not; but it's still a hell of a lot of fun, so I highly recommend it.

Aliens: Infestation on DS is a solid Metroid clone, by the way.

Aliens vs. Predator (2010) kinda sucks :(

I think I'm gonna give Titanfall another go once I wrap-up Crysis 3... Even though Crysis 3 is still kinda of a slog.