The Moving Finger

A little more please!

2011-12-28T08:28:00.001Z

So my computer fucked off a few months ago & it is now replaced with a laptop. This laptop can run basic games, but not the newer things coming out, but that's fine since I prefer my games on consoles & use the PC mainly for independent/casual games & MMO's. WoW runs fine. Lineage 2 runs fine. I probably couldn't play SW TOR on it, but I don't know. I have been able to get things running on less, but I don't really have the biggest desire to play SW TOR to be honest. My desire lays more in Aion being F2P in Feb & Lineage 2 already being F2P now & providing me with joy. This laptop is very awesome though & I am glad to have it. Thank you (you know who you are).

I am taking a break from Dragon Age II to write this. Doing well in this new play through. Something I didn't know would happen was not only my Dragon Age Origins plot points were carried, but also the things I did in Awakenings were as well. I saw the fruits of those labours almost right away when I got into Kirkwall. Unfortunately, it seems as though the other (Witch Hunt & Golems) were not included in the saves. That's all right I guess since they took so short a time to complete (not two hours for each of them) so it wasn't really wasted time as I had wanted to replay them any way. Well here is what was included in my imported save:

Conner was freed from the demon.

Mages were recruited into the army.

Dalish Elves were recruited into the army.

Harrowmont rules Orzammar.

The Anvil of the Void was destroyed.

Loghain was killed.

Alistair is king of Ferelden.

Alistair performed the dark ritual with Morrigan.

The Warden killed the Archdemon.

Vigil's Keep was saved from the darkspawn assault.

The Architect is alive.

Warden's Keep was reclaimed.

Shale was discovered.

King Cailan's corpse was burned.

Mostly they are all options I didn't do in my first DAII import that I went back & made a new DAO save for to try out. Odd that the king Cailan's corpse thing is on there... I wonder how that will come up in DAII.

Wow how the time flies...

2011-12-27T11:12:00.001Z

OK, it's been a while I guess. A lot has been happening & I've just not been in the mood to blog. Of primary note.. Lineage 2 is now free to play. Yes... omg. And Aion in February as well. My cold, black materia heart is all a flutter with joy. We shall see how Aion goes, but for the time being I am pleased with L2 being f2p. It provides joy while I await the release of Diablo III.

Sort of jumped right into that didn't I? Well, Not just L2 to take my time, indeed. I have been playing a lot of Skyrim lately & that's going well. My main file has just over 100 hours on it & is over 11 megs in size. Needless to say, I can't play long before it succumbs to the Skyrim lag issue, which they are supposed to be fixing soon. Well... I hope so! I have some other saves which range from 20-40 hours, so I’ve put a lot of time into Skyrim.

I've also been playing a load of Dragon Age: Origins & Awakening as there are some plot choices I haven't tried out for my Dragon Age II. Have put almost 70 hours into this DA:O&A combined file, so I should have a great run of DAII coming up soon. They are such great games!

I played a lot of MW3 as well, but when I got Skyrim... well... I think we can see which would win out. I have, however, go the urge to play MW3 again so I might. Also, El got Reach so I want to play that as well. My gaming has been rather erratic lately. I've not been well & my gaming has suffered because of that.

In WoW, things are a little lax. I am not impressed with the new content at all. In fact, I had Gwyn removed from Raider & put to Social because I just don't want to do the new content at all in a normal raid setting. Having said this, I am well liking the LFR system & love doing the raids on my holy Pala & Mage (fire spec OFC). It's raiding on MY time which is going a lot better for me than raiding at night when it was always annoying.

I'll do a proper post some time in the new year I guess!

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

2011-09-04T09:14:00.000+01:00

I can't tell you how long I was glued to my television, playing Deus Ex: Human Revolution, because there's no timer or clock which records time and Raptr doesn't track PS3 playing time, automatically, for some retarded reason. If I had to estimate I'd say I've played it around 50ish hours at this point. Well then... graphics! Wow. Seeing some initial screens, I was a little disappointed, but coming into the game (which I got on the PS3 by the way) I was amazed. From the opening FMV to the actual game play, the graphics were beautiful. A lot of people complained about that bronze overtone, but I really loved it. It set a very desolate feel to the game and it got me into the setting a lot easier. Adam (lol at slew of Frankenstein references through out the game by the way) was very nicely done and all his actions and movements were fantastic. Some commented how cardboard or messy the graphics were, especially for people, but I found them to be great. Sure some of the people were a bit rigid, but we can't do magic; there's only so much we can do with graphics right now and I think this game did them damn well. Those city scape scenes and flying over different lands... oh man. When you first come to Singapore.. my mouth was hanging open. Gorgeous. The music was great as well. I sort of felt like it reminded me of the more ambient music to a Bioshock or Fallout in that it really sort of sat behind everything, worming its way into your thoughts. Sometimes it lulled me deep, taking me

Beautiful Cityscapes

into the story is a surreal way. In short; fantastic. I'll be getting the OST as soon as I can. I'd like to buy it, but if I can't find it, I'll download it from somewhere. It's so good and so well composed. Game mechanics and control. This is a two sided issue for me. First of all, why, oh, why do companies change the layout of well know controller configurations? It's annoying and aggravating and I hate it. Moving things like iron sights, sprint, and reload (to name a few) to buttons different than a slew of our established games is not innovative or challenging; IT'S ANNOYING. That being said, after the initial aggravation of a new controller lay out, I got into it pretty well. The interface is great, the weapons switching is smooth, hacking is awesome. I didn't run into any troubles dishing out my Praxis points how I desired and still having to deal with boss fights and hacking. In fact I ended up just putting points wherever because I had already got what I wanted. I didn't even put points in Typhoon until near the end because it just wasn't useful to my play style. I played it on normal difficulty by the way, but I want to play it on Tell Me A Story (Easy) because I have a feel I missed a lot of stuff because I was too involved in staying alive. I got 52% of the trophies on my first run, did a nice bunch of side quests (though I don't think I got them all and/or found their secret trophies). That being said, I still got a load of

Take-downs are a thing of beauty

story from the game. I mean geez it's involved. Little things there and there which give you insight into the characters or just the life of people around you or in buildings. I read all the e-mails I could, all the e-books, all the newspapers. Talked to everyone I saw. I even found two quests by randomly talking to people. That's when it feels awesome... my manic OCD's granting me quests and game play. It is sweet caramel in my mind. Even now I've this desire to play it again. I did start my next cycle and am going to try to not kill anyone this round. It's already been very tough, to be honest. Mission one is down though; everyone lives. Saved the hostages, saved dudes wife, knocked out Sanders for the police. I'm an hero. During my first cycle I was forced to make some choices which were gnawing at me through the rest of the play. This time we'll see how the other choices colour my play.

SPOILERS:
Here are some of the choices I made during my first cycle. I didn't get the new chip because I remembered Elizabeth from the first Deus Ex (a game I didn't like, to be honest, but recall the information from anyway) and anything she is promoting as a 'good thing' is obviously evil. Not only that, but it's so obvious that it's going to fuck up your Christmas if you do get it. I saved Malik, but this was more that I thought it was actually what you're supposed to do. I didn't realise, until after I had beat the game and was checking forums, that you can actually

Exceptional FPS combat

hurry into the building and Malik dies. Whereas I'm curious how this colours other parts of the game, I'm not too happy about leaving her to die, so I'll save her again. I do like her. Talked Taggart's aid out of killing himself for whatever bizarre reason I was thinking of at the time (was surprised by surprise trophy of surprise for saving him) though I did reload and see what happened if he died. Nothing interesting, so I re-reloaded back to saving him save and continued on. I didn't talk to Taggart in the base at the end as I decided I wanted him to die; unfortunately this meant I couldn't see his ending so I guess I will see it this time. I did reload my before ending save to see all the others, though I went with Sarif's ending first as I do believe in his cause (in RL too actually).
SPOILERS END.

Hmm, can't think of other critical plot points that I did, but I've been awake a while and my mind is a smoking ruin. I recommend this game wholly. It is an FPS RPG in the truest sense of the term. It flawlessly combines the FPG mode of play with the RPG interaction and story. I wasn't going to get the game at first, because I didn't like 1 or 2, but after I read some other friends' comments on G+, I decided to give it a try. I'm so god-damn happy I did because it's incredible. Totally get this game.

Join our family now

Another Epic Bites the Dust

2011-08-25T18:42:00.000+01:00

Earring of the Solstice

Well, since I've been able to play Everquest 2 again, I've been working on crafting. No surprise there I guess; that's to be expected. My project now is getting Sszchera finished with her crafting quest-line. When I previously came back, she was capped at 80 in Alchemy and working on her crafting epic. Well, I set the epic aside for a short moment and ground her up to level 90 in Alchemy. With that out of the way, I got her Earring of the Solstice yesterday. Then, shortly after, I picked up her harvesting cloak from the true Avatar of Hate, Qho. I'm now working on the Odus questing for her and it's going pretty well. Being 76 in adventuring, she is better levelled and equipped to deal with the threats of these lands, unlike Einherji who was level 32 when I finished all her crafting. I'm still working on faction for Einherji's Shawl epic, which is taking

Cloak of the Harvester

some time. Of course, I haven't been able to play in a while and I need to get back into the habit of doing the faction every day instead of every other day. I think when I've two character who need it, I'll be better enthused to do it daily and just get it done.

We Are All One

2011-08-22T17:37:00.000+01:00

Well, a lot has happened since my last entry so I'll try to summarise in a coherent way. First of all, I haven't written since my previous entry because I have been, over all, sick as hell. Weak immune systems for the fail. This was doubly bad as I've had to drastically change my diet recently as well, or die, pretty much. So it went from a cold to, somehow, the flu, to a chest infection & so on. Thankfully, I seem to be on the mend now. My change in nourishment habits is going okay actually... since I started, I've lost almost two stone. Though, I did gain a few lbs back when my dad came to visit, but we went out to eat a few times & he brought American sweets so... it's to be expected. I can almost do 10 mins on my bike again; hopefully I'll be back to 30 mins in a few months.

Enough of health news. I got a Roxio game capture thingie so I can stream/record my console games & it's turning out to be pretty awesome. I've put up a loooooad of game footage on my YouTube site & have been streaming a lot as well. You can find my streams at Twitch.tv (where you should definitely sign up). Recently, I have been playing a lot of Persona 3 Portable, Resonance of Fate (PS3 version), almost the entire MegaTen library (lol), Lost Odyssey, The 3rd Birthday, & Everquest 2.

YES... Everquest 2. I finally got whatever issue it was, fixed. It was an unexpected side-effect / joy to getting a new motherboard & quad-core processor. Needless to say, it also runs a lot better than it used to. The most lovely Arkenor gave me a free month in celebration & I'll probably continue to subscribe again, now that I'm not crashing every three minutes. With Beastlord's coming up soon, Everquest 2 is better than ever & I really do enjoy my time in there. However, not being in an MMO for a while has given me reason to limit my time in there. I'm not staying in game very long & I'm making the most of my time.

I don't know if I was playing P3P during my last entry (too lazy to check) but I did beat the female storyline. Restarted it on a new cycle with the male (my favourite still) then decided to start it again on Maniac mode. I did this on the female character because there are a few items you can get in her story which will help a whole lot (Music Box anyone?).
The 3rd Birthday is unusual to say the least, but it's unusual in a good way... I think. It's a surreal mix of game-play not unlike Crisis Core & Dirge of Cerberus, actually. I'm enjoying it, that's apparent, but there is something under it which annoys me a little. Sometimes I think I'm the only person in the world who actually didn't like any of the previous Parasite Eve games. I only picked up The 3rd Birthday because the game-play looked sweet... & it really is.

Those who keep up with my reviews know that I did a review of Resonance of Fate a while ago. It's still one of the best games ever & I still haven't got the Arena achievement yet, though it's the last one to get & I'm over halfway there. Despite this, I got the game again... for the PS3. Yes, I bought Resonance of Fate for another system, while still having it for the 360. To some it might seem silly & people wonder why... why, why, why not just replay it on the 360. Maybe it's just me, but when I've beaten a game, I keep my save files. I can see the save any time I want & I know, going into the game, that I've beaten it. I've accomplished all there is (well except the Arena). When you've a new game, there are no saves. No new cycles. None of that to tempt you. Apart from subtle loading times & some graphical differences (actually I think maybe some of the clothes are different?) the game is mostly the same. In anything that affects the game play at least. I just wanted to play a game I love, clean & new on a different system. It's fabulous, by the way.

Lost Odyssey is another game I treasure. I wanted to replay it from a new save, which is hardly different from a new cycle+ since the only thing you get from that is starting with Kaim at level 50. This time I have a very, very extensive & mapped out guide so I will finally master the Treasure Trove achievement & no longer will it haunt my nightmare realms. The game is as good as ever & I find myself switching between the Japanese track & English rack because they are both so nice. Especially Kaim... wow did they do an awesome job at his casting. He also ranks up there with most beautiful characters in a game... not hot or dreamy or gorgeous, but beautiful. His design is incredible & his story is truly a moving tale.

Lastly, I have been crazy playing some of the MegaTen games, for some reason. Persona 4, Raidou 1, Lucifer's Call, Digital Devil Saga... to name a few. I never get tired of these games & I've rambled about them before so I don't need to get into it now.

That concludes this updated wall of text. I hope to become more regular in my blogging as I'm not dying of death plague now.

Cake or Death!

2011-06-21T06:20:00.000+01:00

So I've recently been informed that soda is no longer an option for part of my daily consumption and that over the next few weeks I'll need to remove it from my diet or die. Apparently, my system has enough to deal with and maintaining borderline will soon be moved to full-blown if I don't do something about it. So I must say goodbye to the sugary delight of my soda and find something to replace it. Now, this is going to be difficult because it's not the sugar or even the taste which is the reason (although a nice side benefit) that I drink so much of it. Coupled with coffee (which I can still consume in mass quantities), drinks such as Dr Pepper, Coke, and Pepsi also help me to exist without being a zombie. Yes, the caffeine is what I require.

Having a severe and somewhat uncommon form of chronic insomnia, I'm always, always, always tired and there is no cure or medicine to help (I'm not open to hearing your suggestions about it; I can guarantee you, there's no cure or treatment). So I need to huge quantities of caffeine to allow me to function somewhat normally. Without it, I'm a zombie... drooling on my couch in a state which is, to me, very similar to the effects of viewing time through a black hole.

OK now, what can I do to replace this caffeine which I've suddenly been stripped of due to not wanting to die from sugar. My natural reaction is to drink even more coffee every day, but my doctor already told me I drink too much, so that's out. It was suggested to me that I give vitamin water a go, however. It's always intrigued me, but it's quite expensive so I've never given it too much thought. However, now that I am not spending £40-£45 on soda every two weeks, I've some extra money to try to discover a healthier way to get the caffeine I require in order to function.

Monday afternoon I did my bi-weekly order from Tesco and decided to get one of every kind of vitamin water they offered. I must say, I was surprised at how many they had. So far I've tried two of the ones I got.

The first was Glacéau 'Revive' Vitamin Water in a Fruit Punch flavour. It was surprisingly good. Apparently, it's jam packed with vitamins b3 b 5 b6 b12, potassium, and vitamin c. It also had 95 kcal and 23.0g sugar which is a bit much, but still a lot less than the sodas and it's a natural sugar. From what I gather from the seemingly schizophrenic description on the label, it's meant for just after you wake up, which's when I drank it (yes, I'm able to sleep sometimes, just not often). It got me moving pretty well, to tell you the truth. I felt a little more alert and was able to 'get my act together' a little quicker as I was making the first cup of coffee for the day. The taste was a little lacking, but considering it's water with flavour, it wasn't bad.

The next one I drank was SoBe 'Kick' Vitamin Water in a Ginger and Mango flavour. This one was actually really delicious. It's main boasts are Ginseng, vitamins b3 b5 b6 b12, and vitamin c, though no potassium (which I'm not sure the function of to be honest). It had 85 kcal, 19g sugar, 0.5g fat, and 0.2g saturates (not too sure what those are). I guess this one is supposed to be a kick start to the day as well, but considering I always exist in a similar state to someone who's just woken up, I feel I can consume any of these at any time and feel their intended effects. I could feel it's effect, but it wasn't a big boom as the Glacéau one, though I did like the SoBe one a lot better.

Though I have many more kinds to try, I decided to go with another SoBe one, but a different flavour this time. It's SoBe 'Glow' Vitamin Water in a Pomegranate and Blueberry flavour. This one has a whole array of different things in it like Zinc, Selenium (no idea what that is though), Vitamins E and C along with weird things like carrot and burdock roots or something. This informs me that it's supposed to be an essential antioxidant and protects against 'free radicals' which damage my body... OK. Oh, and it helps my vision. It tastes OK considering I hate pomegranates, but we'll see the lasting effects of it later. The stats are 85 kcal and 21g sugar. I can really taste the sugar in it for some reason.

Impressions of Forsaken World

2011-06-17T18:52:00.000+01:00

There isn't a load to say about Forsaken World that I didn't go through in the video, but here's a little bit of a run down. First off though, I know I keep saying Korean when what I mean to say is Asian Games in general. I don't mean to be racist at all, though it's more that the style of art I relate to Korean design so I see it and automatically think Korean. Call it what you will, but that's the actual explanation as to why I keep saying Korean and not Asian.

The questing system is the only real 'gah' in learning to play this game. I was informed this was most likely because they expect really only the people who played their other games to play this and therefore didn't put in info on how to use the questing auto-route. I don't know how much truth is in that, but the game improved 100% when I learned about auto-routing.

I really love the graphics, more so than I love Everquest 2 or World of Warcraft. This style of art is my favourite kind for games. The feel of it is very Lineage 2 / Aion, which is a good feeling for me. I've stated before why I stopped playing both those games and it's a sad thing that it still happens. Sometimes I will go back into Lineage 2 to see if they are still swamped with botters and farmers and they are. The overall graphics, not only of the characters, but of the scenery and of the buildings is fantastic. There's an amazing amount of detail and love given to the graphics for something you don't have to pay for. The audio is also nice, but it's repeated so much that you get irritated of it quickly. I heard it all once and it was OK, but I didn't download it and I don't see myself listening to it again.

The RMT in the game I don't think I spoke of. As far as I can tell, it's nothing really to dire in it... fashion, pets, all that stuff. I haven't checked too deeply into their RMT stuff as I don't really have a reason to yet. Some of the fashion stuff like outfits or props, do look a bit cool. If I'm ever given free zen leafs or whatever, then I could see myself grabbing a few, but so far it's nothing that would grab my own wallet to purchase.

Something I touched on in the opening are the stylized Nazi outfits that Asian games seem to give their vampires and military type factions not only in games, but in animes and comics/manga. I basically was trying to say that the outfits were cool, not the Nazis, which is how it MIGHT have sounded when I re-watched the video. It's OK to like the outfit of someone you hate. At least I think so... nothing wrong with that. And they are usually fantastical so that's all right too. I don't have more to say that isn't in the video, so have a good time watching the Kindred starting area. The other starting areas are cool too and if people as I might do videos for them as well. Good luck in Forsaken World!

Spiral Knights Mini Review

2011-06-16T02:41:00.001+01:00

So... Spiral Knights is one of the free-to-play games Steam has decided to offer. So far it's actually really cool, but I don't know how long that will last. It comes with 57 Steam achievements that you can get which is a pretty hefty sum considering what it's composed of so far, but as far as I can tell, it's like some bizarre combination of League of Legends meets A Link to the Past meets Crystal Chronicles. It's a multi-player game where you can join other Robots of Awesome to do quests.

It's published by SEGA, of all things, though developed by Three Rings Design, and has been out for AGES... 2009 to be exact. However, like myself, slews of people have never heard of it. It's not really the type of game I, personally, would ever consider buying because I just don't like the type of game it's portrayed as, and I don't have the kind of wallet to buy games from genres I hate in hopes that I might like one.

You can make guilds, have voice chat (which as I've discovered so far is BALLS), have team chats, invite friends from friends lists, join random parties, or create your own parties. You can make things, alchemericalise things, sell things, buy things... there's a lot there for a free game, but I guess it wasn't always free was it?

The graphics aren't amaaaaazing, but they are cool and cute. You will really be let down if you're expecting Robots made from the blood of the lamb of hosts, but that being said, they aren't bad. Coupled with the catchy music and kind of tweeky sound effects, it's not wholly annoying to exist in. I did turn off the music though; you know how I am.

The money side of things is split into, technically, three things... Energy sort of regenerated after a while on your character depending on you being logged in and Crowns are got normally in game through killing monsters or bosses. The other currency is of course bought with cash-money. Crystal money or whatever is needed if you really want to make high end stuffs or do 'continued' dungeon crawling... I'm not sure what that means, but I hope the game bores me BEFORE I get to where I can't do anything unless I buy Crystal money.

In conclusion, I'll add a little video of some early game-play which you can click on for a better view of it. Also, you can sign in with Steam account, Facebook account, or make a new account from bizarro world. You can chat, add friends, create parties, buy, sell, etc. It's surprisingly addictive AND free so there's no reason to not check it out unless you're a fool or a Took (or both).

Steamy Freebies

2011-06-15T23:40:00.005+01:00

I played Champions Online back in 2009 when it came out and had a lot of fun, but sadly it became rather samey and boring after a while, so I decided to retire it. Now that it's free-to-play I decided why not have a go again... and on Steam no less! No reason not to, I'm not paying anything for it. I did a short video, which I uploaded to Youtube (which you can watch below or by click on my Youtube link) where I run around in a mission on one of my lower level characters. You should check it out!

I know the voice acting is shite; everyone who plays the game knows it and the graphics aren't amazing... it IS cel-shaded which is nice, but it's not done very well, which is bad.

All my characters had been locked in GOLD status, however, so I couldn't play them any-more without converting them to SILVER and destroying their power sets. Thusly, I'll leave Laul and Fate, and my other high level characters, to an unknown future. Instead, I took one of my lower level characters out of the pocket of eternal GOLD and melted her down into some SILVER, then gave her the Soldier line of talents which's basically a munitions specialisation... which works out awesome because she's based on and, indeed, designed after Vincent Valentine as a Turk. I did make another character to re-familiarise myself with the tutorial and see if I forgot anything TOO important (I didn't). I named her The Choir and made her quite a disturbing appearance and background, but maybe I'll get into that later if I decided to play more of the game.

It's more of the same really! It's not any different than the last time I played it, which isn't BAD, but it doesn't bode well for the length of time I would play it again for. The C-Store is the same as ever and while I'm guilty of paying for a few items in the beginning, it wasn't that much by any means and I did get some cool wings. But I digress; I don't see myself purchasing more from it... even if those cute little Japanese robot sidekicks are really, really, really cute and awesome. -_-

Well, I'm sure you can find more about Champions Online elsewhere, but if you're wandering around on it, you can find me @MythosEngineer in the game.

This Week in Gaming 22 May - 29 May 2011

2011-05-29T06:35:00.001+01:00

This week's been a rather jumpy gaming week. There are things I'd like to have played more, but sadly couldn't, as I've stated in previous posts. What've I been playing then? Well I started a new play-through of Amnesia: The Dark Descent for a Youtube series I'm making. That's going pretty well. I don't recall a lot of what's going on in the game both from not playing it for a while and also because my memory's shite. This makes for a very realistically brutal play-through of the game... which is good (?) for the viewers. I've also started on Fallout 3 for the PC for a Youtube series. I've mastered the game, of course, on the 360 version and have blogged about it at length before, so I don't really need to get into it. There are some parts I'm not looking forward to going through again, but I'm not planning to do everything again, just the story and some side quests.

I also played Rift for a considerable amount of time, but I think I'm done with MMO's, at least for a little while. They aren't making me happy any more so they need to be ejected from my life. Finally, I've been playing a lot of Final Fantasy IV Complete on the PSP. All the stories at once! Finishing up some levelling on the moon, in the original game, before I go beat it. Working on my fourth story in After Years; they are in any order you want save the very first one and the very last one. So by the fourth story I mean so far I've done the main story, Edward's story, Palom's story, and now Porom's story. I'm going through Interlude as well. They are all solid games and I'm enjoying them. I also gave some time to Pokémon Black and will probably start the Sherlock Holmes game here soon. That's it for my week in gaming.

Blast and Damnation!

2011-05-27T06:35:00.000+01:00

It IS Everquest 2. I'm sick to death of it crashing. I want to play the fucking game, but with no support from Everquest 2 on the various threads I've made and posted on, I'm just about done with this bullshit. I don't get on the computer to be fucked around with. I want to enjoy my time and Everquest 2 isn't letting me do it. So until it can shape the fuck up, and / or at least give me some god-damn relevant information about the issue, it can fuck off and die. I don't even know if I want to play any MMO's right now because of Everquest 2. I did re-install Rift since they manned-the-fuck up and fixed whatever issue was plaguing them and crashing the game every so often. See that SOE? Unfortunately, Rift is still a World of Warcraft clone... that's not a bad thing, as I've said before, but if I wanted to play World of Warcraft I would... play World of Warcraft. Rift does do the Bard quite well, which, I'm sad to say, World of Warcraft still hasn't fucking got around to adding. WHY? Today is full of god-damn rage and I'm feeling like someone needs to die. It's been a while since I've had a crazy, psychotic break, hasn't it? Yea, think it's about time! Let's clear the Fuck out of the brain!

Anyone who uses 'Ironic' incorrectly can Fuck Off.

2011-05-24T08:08:00.001+01:00

Things have occurred since my last blog entry and not all of them have been joyous. Everquest 2 came back, which is good, but now it keeps crashing, which is bad. It crashes so much that I've hardly been able to do ANYTHING productive at all. Through a hole in my vast anger, however, I decided maybe it's not all Everquest 2's fault as now some of my other games are crashing too. Well... shutting down. Windows gives me the lovely message that it 'stops working' and then informs me it'll shut down and notify me when a solution becomes available... which means never. Seriously, I'm crashing in games no less than 40 times a day at least. It's becoming so aggravating that I'm considering going back to just consoles for a little while or burning this computer to the ground and getting a laptop instead.

In Everquest 2, I managed to finish my Earring of the Solstice, on Einherji, and also got my crafting Griffon (which is very nice as now I can fly around). This will be very helpful in questing. Also, my alchemist is level 90 as well so it's off to do her crafting things as well. If I can ever stay in Everquest 2 long enough to get anything done that is. I had awesome pics of my griffawn as it was growing up and also of when I got my Earring of the Solstice, but after a spontaneous necessity to reformat my drive, I lost those pictures. I do have one of my Alchemist dinging 90 crafting though and one of my Griffon all grown up, so I guess that's all right. Sadly, because of this issue of programmes randomly stopping (maybe it was a windows update recently? I don't even know how to tell) I haven't been able to record any games to put on Youtube. Many people are craving more of my Torchlight series and I wanted to start a Fallout 3 series too, but it's just not possible at the moment. Randomly, the game will shut down and it's not very helpful to my playing or recording. Final Fantasy 04 Complete is going well! I've almost beat the main portion of the game in Final Fantasy 04 and have started Interlude, which is delightful so far. Played a little Silent Hill Homecoming on the PS3 the other day too which was great. I love that game so much. It always makes me so nervous even though I know exactly where everything is! I'll finish Dead Space 2 soon (which I'll do a review for since I did one for Dead Space) aswell. Though over the weekend, I watched my nephew beat it and it was a pretty nice ending... not as startling as the first ending, but it was good none the less. It did leave a way for Dead Space 3 (y / y?). I'm mostly just very frustrated about my computer and not being able to play the games I want to play. I wish there was at least SOME information about WHY the games are crashing but NO. It just says it stops working and has to shut down. NO INFORMATION. Fuck you Windows.

Brief Update

2011-05-12T12:22:00.000+01:00

Well, first thing's first. SOE has been down over a week now and it's really angering me. I was enjoying my time in EQ2, immensely, and now it's been taken away! PSN has been down even longer and that's rather aggravating as well, god dammit. For a while I've only been playing WoW because my brother plays it and I've really nothing else to share with him, game-wise, since he pretty much plays WoW exclusively. All that tends to ware down on one though, so when I ventured over to EQ2 it was a breath of fresh air, so to say. Now it's broken down and I'm annoyed. On the other side of things, however, it's given me some time to play some other games which were deserving of my attention and have been for a long time. Besides Final Fantasy IV Complete, the main game I've been devoting some time to is Civilization 5. I 've liked the other Civilization games, but this one seemed to firmly grapple me this time and I've been almost obsessive with it. Also, I got Pokémon Black for my birthday (since I had White already) so I've been playing that. Finally, I got a Sherlock Holmes DS game which I will start soon. Mass Effect 2 is going well, so is Dead Space 2 and a bit of DDO on the side. But really it's been Civilization 5 and Final Fantasy IV Complete. Not much else to say right now, except that I really, really want EQ2 back. Sad days.

The rat, the rat, the rat is on fire!

2011-05-02T16:17:00.003+01:00

Since SoE has decided to be down all day due to evil hackers, I'll do a small update. Things in EQ2 are going rather well. Enjoying it a lot more than I've enjoyed WoW in the past several months. Let's see everything I've been doing... working my way to 86 on my Carpenter now which is fantastic. When I hit 80 on Einherji, I decided it was time to start the Shadow Odyssey questing series, though, so off I went to Odus. It was going rather well until I ran into the Quel'Ule... they have some pretty dire visions of 'safe' crafting! At one point in a combination I missed a reactive and ended up blowing myself to bits with a Catastrophic Material Disintegration for 236, 466 damage.

That was a little painful and, needless to say, was a severe case of overkill. The rest of the questing went rather well and pretty quickly. The next highlight of that series was the large pandas called the Hua Mein, but I'll go into their awesomeness at a later time. After I completed that, I took Neithe to Kunark to gather some materials for my Alchemist and ran in to some old friends. I love the models they use for the drachnid in Kunark, but I would like to know first of all why the women have tits since spiders are born from eggs... also, how did the men get so ripped? Seriously, what is going on here. The day ended when I headed back to my 2nd home in Qeynos (since we can have multiple homes now) where the little Maltheas joined me and promptly proceeded to leap onto all my furniture! ~~House pests!~~ At least this one is a cute little rodent... *eyes the mouse trap in the corner* However, I'm not too pleased about his tinkering... or tinkering in general! What's Norrath coming to? All this horrible technology! I blame the gnomes primarily, to be honest!

RE: Pain - Now I Only Want You Gone!

2011-04-26T08:32:00.005+01:00

Sir Einherji, Knight of Bayle

It's been a rather busy month. Not necessarily busy in that I've been playing loads of games, but busy in that there's been things going on which have caused me to not play a variety of games. I've been pretty sick, more so than usual, which is exhausting and disorientating, so that has hindered my gaming. Also, WoW was off this month so I decided to give EQ2 a try, as I mentioned in a previous post. That's been going pretty well, to be honest. I'm really, really enjoying my time spent there. My Carpenter's up to 75 now; much lower in adventure level, ~~but who cares about that~~... actually it was pretty dire when I was wandering through Kunark doing Tradeskill quests. Painful in the Loping Plains as well, harvesting for the true Avatar of Hate... Qho. Fucker.

No love from the Ancients, I guess :(

After a painful time on Einherji, I decided to hop on Neithe and see what trouble I could stir up. Neithe is level 80 Battle Cleric (Inquisitor) so it's a lot less painful to wander about with her. I haven't really explored the Odus+ zones yet so I decided to go see the most beautiful dragon of them all... ~~Gorenaire~~ Toxxulia. Unfortunately, she wasn't too happy when I decided to crash her meeting and sent some of her dragon goons my way. After dying a few times, I decided that it was probably best to leave the lady alone for now. Thankfully, it was suggested to me to try the Shard of Love; an event I had missed, being gone from such a long time (2008 was my last solid recollection of playing).

Shard of Love zone in

Upon hearing it was a 50-70 zone I decided to auto-de-level down to 55 and give it a go. Whereas it was not hard, per say, it was time consuming and I forgot to get food and drink... which is embarrassing since Neithe is a Provisioner. Next time I'll auto-de-level to 70 or 75 then remove my auto-de-level so I'll have an advantage. The zone is lovely though and I very much look forward to slapping around a crazy Mithaniel Marr as he mourns for the loss of his sister/lover Erollisi. I can hear Einherji protesting in the background as she is a devout follower of Lord Crazy-pants Marr.

I'm still playing Dissida012. I wonder if it will eventually beat my Dissidia record of 582 hours. I can see this happening easily. In other news, I played, loved, and beat Portal 2. What a fantastic game. What an experience! The music was incredible, the story was dark and amusing, the voices, the art, the puzzles! There is nothing at all I can say bad about this adventure through Aperture Science. Cave Johnson is a man to look up to, a man to respect, a man to avoid at all costs. Not only that, but the co-op is worth playing! It's fantastic! I have a blast going through the testing chambers with others. The ending theme by GLaDOS is better than Still Alive even! I'm not afraid to say it! I find myself singing it constantly.

There is also a quality song by The National in a secret area which is mint. The turret song in Latin near the end is also addicting and hilarious as well. I highly recommend everything there is about this game. For those wondering about the awesome latin song at the end of Portal 2, here you go :D

Cara bella,

Cara mia bella!

Mia bambina, o ciel!

Ché la stima... Ché la stima.

O cara mia, addio!

La mia bambina cara,

perché non passi lontana?

Sì, lontana da Scïenza.

Cara, cara mia bambina,

Ah, mia bella!

Ah, mia cara!

Ah, mia bambina!

O cara, cara mia...

=====

There are many ways you could translate it. Of course the literal word for word way, but for more of a natural way in a context which would be naturally used, this was the best I could find.

Dear beautiful,

My dear beautiful girl, Chell. (it's a pun on 'the sky')
who is esteemed among those who are esteemed.
Oh, my beloved, goodbye.
My dear girl,

Why not walk away?
Yes... away from science.
My dear beloved daughter,
Amen to that.
To call you dear,
To call you beloved.
My girl.
A loved one.
Dear to me.

The veil of conscious thought is fading now and I'm beginning to see colours in mad, relentless fashions again so I'll end this post now. Happy Gaming Citizens!

Unreal Pain

2011-04-07T19:01:00.001+01:00

So here I was eating an egg, like you do. Suddenly, Lucian leapt upon me and I bit wrong and ended up biting my fork. What was the result of this hilarious debacle? Half of my tooth is now sitting on my desk and I am in god-damn fucking agony. Not to mention I am slicing through my tongue on the jagged half tooth monstrosity which remains in my mouth. I have an appointment with the emergency dentist tomorrow which I was going to attend with mum. Unfortunately, she is not sleeping well and so I must go alone. Alone. Without anyone. I don't see how tomorrow could get any worse to be honest. But hopefully they will extract this vile failure of bone from my mouth and all will begin to be well. Brushing my teeth was a whole new level of pain, by the way. Today started pretty well, but... fuck. I can't have a good day to save my life. Literally. Here is a picture of the sad remains.

Dissidia and EQ2... wait, what?

2011-04-05T10:32:00.002+01:00

So I have been enjoying Dissidia012 probably way too much, but I don't care! It's such a good game. I was totally glued to Dissidia Prologus until I completed it and with that completion I was able to finally delve into Dissidia012. I love the changes they've made to both modes of play (regular and also RPG mode with the command menu). Though I prefer the regular mode, the RPG command menu mode isn't too bad, but pretty limiting. I guess it's okay if you're just starting out with playing or something. As well as being my favourite of the new characters, Laguna's attacks are monster! His machine gun attack and ragnarok blade are devastating. Yuna is my least favourite... her attacks are so slow and take ages to use against someone. Worse than Terra -_- But, that being said, truly this is a fantastic game and I can see me loosing a lot more time in it.

On the other side of the gaming spectrum, I decided it was time to give EQ2 another step in. Those who know of my gaming history know that I did both the WoW and EQ2 beta. I decided to attempt to play them both when they came out. Though it was a little weird at times, after a year I found myself too tied and went with WoW. When the Faydark expansion came out for EQ2 I went back to have a go with it and for a while it was great... until Kunark. Raiding in Kunark is what made me leave the game and since then I haven't been back. I'm still enjoying WoW, don't get me wrong, but I wanted to see how EQ2 was doing. I'm surprised to say, it's doing pretty well. Velious recently came out and that was my absolute favourite EQ1 expansion. It's wildly different now, of course, but it's nice to see Halas again. I don't expect to put TOO much time in exploring though as I'm still busy in WoW and of course Dissidia012 has my soul. But it's nice to wander around and see how things have changed since day 1.

Dragon Age 2

2011-03-29T10:23:00.005+01:00

Well, Raptr says 82 hours and Steam says 22 hours... I think Steam needs to get it's internal clock sorted out! What am I talking about? Dragon Age II of course (the PC version). With 80+ hours in, I think it's time for me to give a review about the sequel to a game I love very much. I never did a Dragon Age: Origins review and I think it was because I loved the game so much (200+ hours) that I felt reviewing it would be doing some kind of injustice. I have felt the same about the Assassin's Creed games, as well as Star Ocean. However, the time has come to lay aside those silly thoughts and try to share my love of games a bit more. And so, here is a review of Dragon Age II.

As I said, I have sunk over 80 hours into the game and I can honestly say that I'm still enjoying it. So much in fact, that I have done two other play-throughs in Dragon Age: Origins so I can import those saves into Dragon Age II and see the changes which take place because of them. I'll get into that aspect of the game near the end though. Where to start now? There's so much to say.

After the amusing commentary by the dwarf and Orlesian at the beginning you are thrown into the game escaping from Lothering... a place you also visited in Dragon Age: Origins. It was nice to be playing someone who escaped the Blight, to be honest. It gave me a little more of a connection to what was going on. Plus, the mini tutorial was good to experience for the changes they made. I have to say, the best change was the Target and Attack nearest Target button (I bound mine to Q). This made combat A LOT better.. it also helps for looting as well! Something I hate in any game.

There have been loads of negative reviews about this game, some of which I agree, most of which I don't... even more where I think humanity has finally gone batshit crazy. I imported my save from my Dragon Age: Origins mage first off, even though I spent the least time on her, but because I knew the character I would play was related to the mage origin from the first game (Amell being the surname). It gave a little nod to it at a few areas, but nothing too interesting.

I'm going to talk about some more basic things first, namely your equipment and inventory. I absolutely LOVE what they did! I can't tell you how annoying it was in Dragon Age: Origins to rifle through all my shit trying to find other shit to sell. And now we have an area where things automatically go into as a junk tab? Holy thank you Bioware! In Dragon Age: Origins it was painful trying to sift through it all, so I'm well grateful that they streamlined it like they did. The weapons, armour, and jewellery sections are just mint. Another thing they did was for all your companions, you don't give them new armour, excluding jewellery and a weapon. This is because you find things from quests or vendors which are used to upgrade their current armours. There are a total of four upgrade slots for each character which provides better stats and rune-slots. This is so much better than having to find new shit for them to wear. Determining which weapon and accessories would be best for them was pretty easy, depending on how you've put their talent points. Yes, my friends, this is an improvement which I was ecstatic about.

I mentioned talents just there and I'm a lot happier with how they've made them. Each companion has their own tree which is specific to them. Depending on if you're their Friend or Rival, they'll give you an extra bonus, but that isn't really very significant overall. Some of the companion talents are really quite awesome. Your characters specializations, as well, are pretty straight forward and easy to understand. I found myself liking the mage a lot more in Dragon Age II than in Dragon Age: Origins because of how much better it was using the talents in combat.

And of course, now combat. Not always the happiest of topics for me. It was much, much better than Dragon Age: Origins, this I have to say. I've a lot more love for how they tweaked it in Dragon Age II. The tactics were easier to get through as well and setting up strategy just felt more natural. In Dragon Age: Origins the combat was clunky, but for the time it was good and they let you pull the camera overhead for a more RTS feel to it, which did help a lot. Whereas they removed that feature in Dragon Age II, I'm glad they made the decision to make it more immersible and easier to use (RE the Q targeting I mentioned earlier). Now, encounters don't really differ from each other in a huge way (I can think of only three or four where I had to do something different than normal to beat it), but to be honest, this is how I feel in most games. Combat isn't the number one thing for me in games though; it's just a necessity to get to more storyline and RPG.

Next I want to touch upon the story and companions. Dragon Age: Origins has my life for 200+ hours and I'll be the first to admit how incredible the story and character development was in that. Did Dragon Age II let me down? Hell no! Now, I can't say for the DLC because I haven't got that yet (though plan to in a few weeks), but the other characters I felt were quite fleshed out and I felt like I understood them quite a bit. I've done both sides of their stories (you can be Friend/Rival, but also there are different paths to take which can cause you to loose companions for good depending on those actions) and I feel that some of them were even better than Dragon Age: Origins's companion stories. Especially Wynne, Leliana (without her DLC), and Sten... they didn't really make me feel like I had a part in their lives, but in Dragon Age II I felt like I personally had a part in all my companions lives... especially Fenris and Merill.

This is also partially because the entire thing is fully voiced, so my voice is being heard talking to my friends/rivals in certain tonalities (based upon how I talk previously the most IE sarcastic or kind or angry), while they respond to me in different tones depending on my relationship with them. Also, the dialogue in this game... oh man. I can't even begin to say how awesome it is. There were times I just couldn't stop laughing at some of the amusing comments and also gasping at some of the really atrocious things people get up to. Another topic people are up in huffs about is the bisexual characters thing.. yea I agree that it was a bit lame how they did that. Anyone can get with anyone which was a bit what...? Even in the Dragon Age: Origins there were characters (Morrigan/Alistair) who were gender locked, but in Dragon Age II that's not the case. It would have been awesome to have a straight, gay, or lesbian only case as well as one or two bisexual characters. That was a mistake on their part, but maybe they were constrained by money and time. Isabela as a lesbian only would have rocked!

For the story, it was so great. I loved being 'limited' to Kirkwall and the surrounding area. It made me feel like I lived there; like it was my home. I didn't have to go to a million different places to do all these quests for 100 different people and races and places. I was a person who lived in the city and did things for my city. It felt more tight knit and secure. That the 'final' story wasn't clear during the acts was really brilliant! Each Act had it's own story and seeing how they eventually came together was genius. First off, trying to raise the money to go to the Deep Roads was great and as the Act continued and lead into others, I found myself questioning the decisions I'd made and seeing another story which I thought was bigger. Then another Act passed and the same happened again. I loved how they kept it close at hand. Whether it was money or whatever on their part, I think it was done in a fantastic way.

I was glad not knowing the overarching story though. Each Act being it's own story, as I said, was great! It was normal! Like a person's life... you were going through the years, doing things that didn't seem to connected, but then suddenly, when it all explodes at the end, you see how your actions through the years affected everything. Superbly done and I thought it made perfect sense.

Graphics and music! Wow. There were times when I just stood on a cliff or overlooked a gorge in total awe. Everything was beautiful... even the hideous things like dwarfs and dark-spawn were a joy to look at. The animations were so clean and together with crisp music and sound effects, I was pulled into the game in a very entire way. I don't know that there is a load to say about either the graphics and the music which could elaborate more... it was impressive and I enjoyed them both a lot.

Overall, I would recommend this game. It was worth the money and worth the time. I am still doing some plays of it and enjoying every minute inside the world. Seeing other characters I knew from Dragon Age: Origins come back for cameos was wonderful. Living in Kirkwall was trying at times, but rewarding. After I beat the game the first time, I delved into some great mods to alter my appearance (mostly just eyes and hair) and change the textures on some of the armours, but other than that I didn't feel the need to extensively mod the game as I had so much fun doing in Dragon Age: Origins. Maybe I will further down the line though.

I'll say one last thing. If you've played Dragon Age: Origins, you can import a save file into the Dragon Age II game which will change the way some things play out. For example... Did you put Alistair on the throne or Anora? Or did you exile Alistair? Did you save Conner or kill him? Harrowmont or Bhelen? And not just from the first, you can import your DLC saves as well. You never know what decisions will affect your Dragon Age II game or how they will affect it. It's really great to see all the little changes or hear something mentioned. I recommend trying many different combinations!

Time Consuming!

2011-03-14T14:42:00.003Z

It's been a short time since I typed out anything of interest and it will probably be a while still, but until then here is some rambling. The biggest thing lately has been Pokémon Black and White. Everyone who knows me, knows of my love for the Pokémons which has spanned since my first play of Yellow. At this time I've almost all of the games... some I just can't find and really have no need to find. I've Crystal, FireRed, LeafGreen, Sapphire, Emerald, Ruby, Diamond, Pearl, Platinum (though can't find my pak anywhere.. might have to order new), SoulSilver (nephew has HeartGold) and White (niece has Black). So I really don't NEED to get the ones I'm missing, though it would be nice to have them ~all~.

Anyway. So yea I've been playing a lot of Pokémon. My first play of White went well and I beat it in 40-something hours, then really beat it at 48ish hours. It can be beaten with a lot less time, but I'm crazy and did loads of side things before I made my way to the Elite Four. It was a rewarding experience, let me tell you. All new Pokémon to catch. 156 new ones that I'd never caught before! Not to mention new graphics and better music. B&W have really raised the Pokéball on this one and it's awesome indeed.

Pokémon ASIDE. I've been playing a lot of Torchlight as I'm doing a YouTube play-through of the game. The Alchemist is a solid character and ember lightning is way overpowered. Aside from that, I'm enjoying going through all the dungeons and levels again. My Vanquisher and Dragoon were my main classes before and they were massively fun to play, but I think the Alchemist's creeping up to a favourite as well. Also decided to have another go with Divinity II, which is already a great game, but I got distracted by other games. I love the graphics of this game so much and combat is fantastic!

Well since this is a brief update, I will end it here. You can see my Torchlight videos HERE. And you can peruse my Divinity II video HERE.

The Terminal Show

2011-02-26T07:18:00.003Z

Is there a sale going on somewhere for Silent Hill: Homecoming? Because lately, I've had a load of people asking me which version of the game is better / which to get. Well, I've just decided to answer it here instead of the mass e-mail I was going to send... this is also less effort/annoying. I have owned and played the 360 and PS3 versions of this game. I have 1000/1000 on the 360 and almost all the trophies on the PS3 version, though the reason for not perfecting that one was time constraints and new games, not for dislike. Indeed, I view the PS3 version of the game as a much better version.

Now, I'm not sure if it's a true fact of reality that the PS3 version is graphically better than the 360 version, but my, admittedly fucked, eyes see it so. The blood looks more realistic and the movements of characters / ambiance of the world seems just better. I suppose I've never done an actual review of the game; I was going to when I completed the PS3 version and still intend to do so, but that might be a few months down the line what with so many awesome games coming out soon. Long story short, if you can, buy the PS3 version over the 360 version. I don't know if it looks better because I'm told it looks better because it's on the PS3 or if it really is better, but as far as I view it.... it's better. O_o

On a side note, today I finally made over-easy eggs without breaking the film over the top. I make eggs every day and always over-easy because I hate the clear film that goes on the yolk, but I always manage to break the yolk when I scoop it back out after flipping it. Today I did not break it and I was free to break it manually with the dip of my toast. It's a good morning.

Disappoint Moi

2011-02-24T17:30:00.003Z

I'm mildly disappointed. I had the 3DS pre-ordered and was all for the joy of having a new system to play on only to be crushed by the launch line up. Because of this, I've cancelled my pre-order for now and will get a 3DS when they decide to release some games which aren't shit (I guess Samurai Warriors isn't shit, but it's not a day one buy for sure). This leaves me with a little extra ££££ to buy some of the other gems coming out this quarter which have been thrown to the side and forgotten amongst all the devious hype. Some of these are:

Dragon Age II (360)
FEAR 3 (360)
Kirby’s Epic Yarn (Wii)
Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus (Wii)
Dissidia012 Duodecim Final Fantasy (PSP)
3rd Birthday (PSP)
Hyperdimension Neptunia (PS3)
Ar Tonelico Qoga (PS3)
Dementium 2 (DS)
Emily The Strange (DS)

To name a few (and I know some of those are available elsewhere, but they are only just coming out here) ... I can't get them all, of course. I would LIKE to, but being disabled doesn't really pay very well, I'm sorry to say. We've never had a shortage of consoles or hand-helds, though, so I don't see myself unable to buy the 3DS when a game for it comes out. I'm sad to have been let down, but it's Nintendo... I'm used to it.

As for what the fuck ever I've been playing. The World Ends With You got some game-play the beginning of the week, but sorta tapered out there in the middle. It's radiance was replaced by Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep and I am having a great time playing that. Gotta say, however, I really hate Aqua. What a cow. Also been playing some GTA4 and WoW of course. It's really not a very good month. Can't wait til this shit is over! Come on March!

This is what drives Ikaruga...

2011-02-13T18:37:00.001Z

Somehow, what I've been playing turned from only one game for an entire week to a veritable menagerie of games. Rather than make some list I am just going to say some things about them.

I have been working on the final achievement for Resonance of Fate (the arena challenge) which is going all right. Five starring a battle in the arena requires you to finish 11 matches in one rank and there are 50 ranks. That's 550 matches, unless I suck at maths... oh right I do. When I first started this feat, it was during my initial game and in my new game+ but I didn't pay it too much attention. I seriously wish I had because doing arena battles with nothing else to do is terrible. So I am doing one or two ranks a day now and I should be 1000/1000 soon. I love Resonance of Fate wholly and can't wait to get the completion under my belt. I also don't want to burn out on it because of my love which is why I will take it slowly for this achievement.

I have also been playing Ikaruga (xbla version) and Rez HD with a little bit of Hexic thrown in there. Ikaruga is a favourite of mine that I had on the GC (but strangely I have no idea where my GC copy is any more) and have very recently purchased from xbla. Though, I have to admit to playing as Ginkei more than Ikaruga as Ginkei's ship design is much sleeker. My Ikaruga replay joy came from my recently deciding it was time to start Sin and Punishment 2. This game is super awesome, though I will save my elaborate wording for the review of it I will eventually do.

As far as more games, I have also been playing a little Dragon Age Origins (360) though I didn't do too much when I was distracted by something shiny outside and turned it off. Speaking of old games I came back to, I loaded up Crystal Bearers again. Having somewhat recovered from the shock of Nintendo deleting my HDD when they fixed my Wii (destroying, among other things, an 88 hour save of Crystal Bearers right before the last boss) I decided it was time for me to restart and bring to a conclusion Layle's story. That's going good.

However, above Crystal Bearers and above Sin and Punishment 2 and all the other games I've been playing, lies the gem of this gaming week: Sengoku Basara 3 (Samurai Heroes). The other games of the series were good, but this one took me by storm. Now this game is a deviant to my normal gaming habits in that I generally will buy a game for multi-platform systems based on how hot the graphics are for which system. But in this case I used a different criteria. I knew that the PS3 version would have trophies, and indeed I did glance over them, but I don't want that in this game. I love these games for the stories and I don't want a number of trophies/achievements sitting by THIS game, telling me how good I've done in it. This is a rare case where I will choose the story and play over graphics when choosing the system. Yes, I got it on the Wii and I have to say... it's AMAZING. I couldn't have predicted how awesome this game was going to be and I am well glad I don't have a trophy count disrupting my pure enjoyment of the game.

I also dabbled with a nice little hour of Disgaea 3 before deciding it wasn't time to come back to that quite yet hahaha. Working my way through the missions in the JPN version of Crisis Core as well. All I have left for total completion of that region is Minerva now. Yes, sitting at 99% completion while I farm her for phoenix downs to sell and max my stats. Forgot what a terrible fight that is until I loaded up my EU version of the game to remind myself what materia and fusing I needed to get together. Such a good game. As well as that, I played some Star Ocean: First Departure (great game!) and Phantasy Star Portable 2 (so awesome). I am also feeling that either another Infinite Undiscovery or Final Fantasy 4 play is going to happen soon.

Oh, also I did play WoW, but I think only for like an accumulated two or three hours this week. Just not really on a socially interacting kick lately, but I have heard great things about the new patch so I'll probably give WoW some time this upcoming week.

30,000!

2011-02-08T23:27:00.001Z

Though it's not Friday, I don't care, this is what I've been playing... FINAL FANTASY 13 FOR FUCKS SAKE. What the hell. I know. Despite the scathing review I game this game a while back ( this nonsense ) I came back to it (almost a full year later) because my younger sister decided to play it over here for a bit. I watched the Optima shifting, the fights, the music, the graphics. The annoying as hell footsteps... and I became a little nostalgic for the grind. Yes the grind. The devious devil of disaster that is the Post Game of FF13. After a year though, it wasn't too terrible coming back.
A few battles here and there and I slid back into it. A little quick research on where I was going with my weapons and some good Optimas to set up and I was back in the game. Literally. I went from 62 hours to almost 100 in like a weekend. So what have I got to show for it? I have now finished every mission there is to finish and have five starred about 85% of them I think, but I don't know that I will five star them ALL... that achievement might be a bridge too far. Besides that one, the only other achievements I am missing are hold every item/weapon/accessory, kill a long gui whatever, and fully develop every character (which I'm close to).
After the pain of going through this game once already and now having to watch my sister go through it (though I don't really mind that), I can safely say that once I have finished these achievements, I will not play this game again. My nostalgia has begun to fester into a seething resentment for the lack of any kind of replayablity in this disaster of a game.
The big deal of this post however is that with FF13's rage inducing grindfest, I have toppled over the 30,000 gamerscore mark and at this time sit at 30,209 gamerscore. It was a nice time when it happened... I just sort of scooted from 29k to 30k and hardly noticed it until I checked how many achievements I had left to get. It's nice to have an even starting number again, though it will be over soon. Back to the grind.

Also, here's an updated list of my top 20 favourite games of all time. It's mostly stayed the same since the last time I droned on about it. I won't get into a lengthy discussion, but because I am inspired, you have to deal with it.

Top Favourite Video Games:
01. Final Fantasy IV
02. Persona 3 FES
03. Resident Evil 4
04. Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII
05. Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening: SE
06. Star Ocean: The Last Hope International
07. Assassin's Creed II
08. Dissidia: Final Fantasy
09. Final Fantasy XII
10. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
11. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective
12. Lost Odyssey
13. Resonance of Fate
14. Infinite Undiscovery
15. Silent Hill 2
16. Bioshock
17. Valkyrie Profile 2: Silmeria
18. Castlevania (Lament of Innocence)
19. Fallout 3
20. Phantasy Star II

This Week in Gaming: 23 Jan - 29 Jan 1011

2011-01-29T00:25:00.001Z

The week hasn't been the best for gaming as I've been on the doorstep of death for most of it. Story of my life, hm? I have had a good chunk of time playing, but not a wholly diverse amount of games in general.

00. Star Ocean: The Last Hope International

01. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

02. Persona 3 FES

03. Shin Megami Tensei III: Lucifer's Call

04. World of Warcraft

05. Dissidia: Final Fantasy

This Week in Gaming: 15 Jan - 22 Jan 1011

2011-01-22T09:11:00.002Z

This week has been mostly dominated by Star Ocean: TLH International. I became crazy instilled with a need to finish up some of the trophies that I hadn't got yet. Memorable in itself is the fact that at it's current time on Ratpr (150 hours even) it has become my #2 game played under WoW which has 701 hours at the moment... -_- Had I been using Raptr when I was playing SO: TLH on the 360, that would be #2 as I have well over 400 hours on that. Well enough of this nonsense. Here is my list of games for last week.

00. World of Warcraft

01. Star Ocean: The Last Hope International

02. Nier

03. Final Fantasy: The 4 Heroes of Light

04. Star Ocean: Till the End of Time

05. Dissidia: Final Fantasy