shtuff

Behind

Mon, 07 Aug 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Wet Seat

Mon, 31 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Mystery Bike

Thu, 27 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Movie Snacks

Tue, 11 Jul 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Banner Year

Mon, 03 Apr 2023 04:00:00 +0000

Anglophiles

Thu, 23 Feb 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Old Town Road

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 05:00:00 +0000

Reindeer Games

Fri, 23 Dec 2022 05:00:00 +0000

Trivia Night

Wed, 24 Aug 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Don't Talk to Me

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 04:00:00 +0000

Pizza Pinwheels (Plus: Caramel Pinwheels)

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 16:55:27 +0000

These are our family favourite, they taste great. Like pizza? You'll like this. They're great for snacks or lunch.
By: Noodle93

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How to run Homebrew on your Nintendo DS!

Sat, 11 Nov 2017 09:01:01 +0000

Update: 9/7/08, added in a FAQ Section.Ever felt your DS could do more? A lot more? It can do more, and it can be activated through DS Homebrew. This Part by Part guide will help you learn about what is Homebrew, how to run it, where to buy items, recommended downloads and more.And ideas, suggestion...
By: Noodle93

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How to make your R4 boot any .nds file from the second icon on the menu!

Sat, 11 Nov 2017 08:30:59 +0000

This will show you how to make your R4's second icon on the menu boot any .nds you want.
By: Noodle93

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How to cook an impressive meal.

Fri, 10 Nov 2017 18:00:56 +0000

Teriyaki Chicken with Hokkien Noodle Stirfry. Mmm. Teriyaki Chicken. In my opinion though, food tastes a lot better made from scratch. The stuff you get at Sushi is so good, so when I made my own sushi I needed to make Teriyaki Chicken.Let's the cooking begin. (For optimal results, marinate overnigh...
By: Noodle93

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Connecting and Transferring files from your DS via FTP.

Fri, 10 Nov 2017 01:31:05 +0000

Thanks to Kevind23 for hookin' me up with the link to this.What We're Doing:Using a flashcart to run DSFTP, a homebrew FTP server (File Transfer Protocol), so then we can transfer the files wirelessly through a program on the computer. It means we don't need to keep removing micro/mini/whateverSD ca...
By: Noodle93

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Looking Back on the Last Several Months

Sun, 22 Jun 2014 10:37:22 +0000

So my last post here was nearly a year ago…not exactly something I intentionally meant to do. Nevermind, let me catch up.

Since then, I’ve been still gaming just not reviewing things as I once did. Admittedly, most of it spent on FIFA 14 (PS3), a truck load of games on the PS Vita (mainly thanks to the excellent Playstation Plus service) and the odd sessions on Steam.

I hardly considered any RPG Maker games, I think my patience with most of these games has ran thin. I did get the recent RPG Maker VX Humble Bundle so maybe I’ll get back into that (or maybe not). I found myself just staring at the tilesets and nothing I thought of made me want to restart this long-forgotten love of making my own (unfinished) games.

My record on FIFA 14’s Ultimate Team mode is now at ~600/50/~100 (win,/draw/loss), not counting the surprisingly good World Cup mode that EA released recently. I played about 80 games on that alone. I managed to get the platinum with a bit of good fortune in the skills game. With the time spent in other modes, that’s at least over 10,000 hours of gaming which is insane. Those couple of play hours each day really do add up. Maybe I should forgo FIFA 15 and do something more worthwhile, I’m seriously considering this and might just keep FIFA 14 to tide me over until I decide to get a PS4 next year.

On the PS Vita, thanks to PS+, I managed to experience a lot of games I never thought I’d try. I’ll mention a few I enjoyed.

Dragon’s Crown – A very solid game that I overlooked for it’s design choices and hefty debuting price tag. Mixes the good things about Golden Axe (co-op play, juggling enemies etc) with RPG elements (loot, skills cards etc). Currently playing as a fighter and hit Level 60 on Insane mode. The online game-play is great. Clocked in 40 hours so far.

~~Jetpack Joyride~~

Murasama Rebirth – Another Vanillaware game and just as addictive. Plays a lot like Dragon’s Crown, just a bit more Metroidvania-like. I’m stuck at some angel-bird boss 30 hours in, struggling to find a good reason to finish it though I must be close so I’ll preserver.

Soul Sacrifice – The supposedly great Vita game, turned out to be a good game but nothing as good as the noise made by the Vita community. The arena-based battles is fun with the mechanics of using spells rather than gear to defeat your enemies but the grinding in this game really does test your patience. Online is pretty cool though coming unprepared can make you a huge liability to the party.

Hotline Miami – The sequel is almost out. This game is awesome in short bursts. One difficult trophy away from the platinum, I gave up. Maybe one day I’ll come back to it.

New Little’s King Story – This game is like Pikmin but with town-building elements. Enjoyed the gameplay, story wasn’t really that great. Managed to get 100% so that’s good.

And there’s a few others I’m sure I missed. With a disappointing E3 for the PS Vita, I’m glad I got my money’s worth by now. I inherited a badly conditioned PS Vita so I’ll probably just keep it for PS4 remote play and the odd decent (indie) game that comes out.

My PS+ service expires next month, topped up £40 for renewal last year, stupidly forgot to buy the annual offer in September (free 3 months) so I may just let it expire and wait. I need to return to GTA V (lost a 95% complete save…) and work through a colossal backlog of games so maybe that’s for the best.

Next post in 2015 (!)

This is a second test video post.

Sun, 13 Oct 2013 00:26:25 +0000

BLASH BLAH VLASH

Normal Text Post

Thu, 10 Oct 2013 03:24:50 +0000

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum est nunc, fringilla sit amet consequat sit amet, posuere in risus. Sed eu eros ut dui gravida faucibus quis ac quam. Curabitur posuere, ligula at adipiscing feugiat, libero magna pretium purus, vitae euismod tellus sem non justo. Cras pretium tortor purus, et ultrices sapien fringilla eu. Morbi feugiat metus quam, ut aliquet massa egestas a. Mauris ipsum magna, laoreet ac magna ut, semper ornare orci. Sed in ultricies purus. Morbi consequat at tortor non mollis. Praesent a neque vel lacus mattis iaculis et ac velit. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Fusce ac mi imperdiet, interdum leo eget, lacinia risus. Curabitur eget dui ac mi congue vehicula. Nulla facilisis condimentum eros eu sollicitudin. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. In hac habitasse platea dictumst.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past 2 Demo Secret

Wed, 09 Oct 2013 01:32:46 +0000

So I was watching the gameplay video for LoZ: LTTP2 and I noticed something weird. So I messed with the audio settings of the video and found something surprising.

Batman: Arkham City

Sun, 29 Sep 2013 23:10:00 +0000

Sometimes I wonder how does Bruce Wayne gets himself into these situations. Does he happen to buy trouble in bulk or is this really normal day for our Dark Knight. Which ever way you look at it, his troubles are your gain as the Bat is back and better than ever. If an exciting story and the allure of playing as Catwoman does not convince you, then hopefully I can.

Batman: Arkham City takes place 6 months after the events of Arkham Asylum. It may have not seem like much time but a lot has happened in that small gap. Inmates of Arkham Asylum and Blackgate prison have been moved to a closed out section of Gotham City called… well.. Arkham City. Having all those inmates together in a closed open area alone seems like trouble, but that’s not the worst part. The one in charge is none other than Professor Hugo Strange. How he came into power, that’s up to you to figure out by playing the game.

Much of the game’s formula hasn’t changed all that much, retaining plenty from the very solid Arkham Asylum. Arkham City adds just enough to pack more of a punch, and that includes the new setting and the plot in place. The main story starts you off with that huge bang mentioned earlier and slowly expands the situation as you progress. Your mind may be wrapping around how the heck Hugo Strange came to be the warden/ruler of Arkham City. Maybe punching a few popular faces may lead you into the right direction. The Joker makes a return with his right hand gal Harley Quinn as per expected and things get a tad crazy. Along with the dastardly duo, you’ll see many more familiar faces of Batman lore, including the ever so plucky Penguin, the half lucky Two-Face and even the cool (I’m sorry!) Mr. Freeze. With an even bigger rouges gallery, this city ain’t a place where bats are welcomed. The main story campaign will will take you 10+ hours to complete. That is, if you solely concentrate on the main story missions. Invest in all of the side quests available and you’ll definitely see that time count increase. It’s during these missions where you’ll meet even more villains like Bane, Zsasz and the ever enigmatic Riddler.

Similar to the first game, Riddler has placed trophies all around the city for you to collect. Along with these trophies, Riddler has taken hostages and threatens to kill them unless you can solve his riddles. An somewhat exciting twist to what it the longest side mission in the game. There are over 400 trophies to collect and 40 of them are exclusively to Catwoman, who I’ll get back to in a moment. On top of that, as you complete Riddler’s challenges you will gain access to challenge maps outside of the main game.

As I touched lightly on it before, the gameplay is a lot like Arkham Asylum. Batman has a few new gadgets at his disposal such as freeze bombs and a electromagnetic gun. You retain all of your tech from the last game, and receive so much more that Alfred made a joke on why Batman does not carry a bigger utility belt. You are also able to use more of your gadgets in combat without losing your combo count. The base of the combat remains the same but added a couple of new flashy moves. One example of such is a move that I enjoy doing greatly, unleashing a flurry of rapid punches to an inmate’s chest, but in order to do this your opponent has to be dazed by your cape. Finishing moves also add to the flash, if you manage to get to a 12 hit combo (you can get that requirement down to 5 with upgrades) you will be able to perform an always satisfying instant take down. More examples consist of being able to instantly take down all enemies on the ground as well as countering multiple enemies at once. All in all, combat is still fun and intense.

Even though you were given what seems like a open world, under the hood it really isn’t. You will spend your time going to location to location only to just find out you’ll have to enter a building. However are given more abilities to traverse the city. The glide has been improved with dive-bombing mechanics. In order to gain that extra distance you can dive bomb like a hang glider and rise back up to gain some extra distance. The glide kick has been upgraded to allow the dive bomb to help and instantly take down the opponent.

Catwoman on the other hand moves around differently than Batman. Instead of using a grapple hook, Catwoman uses her claws to climb the building. While doing this you can time your button presses just right and you can climb faster or miss on purpose and go up slower to help in your plan. While sneaking around if there is a grate above she can jump up and walk around like spiderman.( Completely different franchise) In combat Catwoman fights just like Batman and using her whip instead of a cape to daze someone. However her moves are a bit more flashy and sexy to give it that Catwoman flare. I personally like playing as Catwoman mostly because the way she traverses the land. What bothers me the most is that its a bit short. I understand the game is mostly about Batman but I really enjoyed playing as Catwoman. And to top it all off, its hidden under a project 10 pay wall. Hiding something that ties really well into the main story is a major no no.

I didn’t really play much of the challenge maps in Arkham Asylum, but the new features in Arkham City actually make it more interesting. Instead of going though the maps 1 by 1, you are giving a campaign of 4 or so maps in a row. What makes it more interesting is you are given the chance to pick perks before starting like faster heal boost or some that make it harder like a random enemy has invincibility. Once your done with that you can go leaderboards and gloat about your amazing time or create your own challenges and send them off to your friends.

Overall Batman: Arkham City is an amazing game with an amazing story with many twists to keep you wondering what gonna happen next. Gameplay at its base is the same with a few tweaks here and there. And keeping stuff behind paywalls is still a major gripe for me. But I recommend the game if you want more Batman action like the previous one, or if you want to play an awesome game as the cape crusader.

Got a PS Vita!

Sun, 04 Aug 2013 15:30:52 +0000

I finally picked up a PS Vita along with a few games; Mortal Kombat, Rayman Origins and Everybody’s Golf a couple of weeks ago on good old eBay. All of ‘em I found to be a bit boring in all honesty. Everybody’s Golf was pretty fun but not fun enough to keep hold of while it had some selling power. I recouped about £20-odd quid making my 3G Vita and it’s 8GB memory about £100.

The main problem with the PS Vita is it’s lack of good quality games and it’s extortionate memory card prices. I think Sony rely on gorging it’s Vita owner this way just to justify the Vita’s existence.

Anyway, since I got Playstation Plus, it made no sense not to get a bigger memory card. I probably should’ve went for a 32GB but if anything Backloggery.com taught me, it’s best to focus on a few games to finish then try and play over ten games at once.

I was disappointed in Vita’s answer to the 3DS’ streetpass. Vita’s own Near system is problematic because it relies on an internet connection rather than local wireless connections between systems so it makes it rather limited. I don’t use the 3G connection namely because it’s just not worth it although I do have a data plan on my phone which I rarely use, it’s not worth the hassle getting out of the phone to use for a few moments on the Vita. This is probably the only reason to have 3G on your Vita otherwise it’s just pointless.

So far I played a few decent games, the only stand-out title so far being Virtue’s Last Reward. Having played 999 on the DS, I knew I’d play this to completion and did so yesterday. Great ending although I was confused on a few clarifications on the story, if anything it made me more confused.

The PS Vita does have some free-to-play games. The only one that I kept on my memory card was Treasures Montezuma Blitz, some Bejeweled clone but quite nice to play on-and-off. It has a limited play system (like Spiral Knights on the PC) but since I rarely play it, it’s not a problem.

The lack of good applications is frustrating though. The few useful ones are for social sites like Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, Flickr and Youtube which work well. Other than that, there’s not much else to write about.

I don’t think I would’ve gotten the Vita if it wasn’t for Playstation Plus to be honest but maybe that’s why Sony decided to give out Vita games every month. I just installed LEGO: Lords of the Rings (doesn’t look that great though) and played a few rounds of When Vikings Attack, the online modes were fun in short bursts.

I hope the PS Vita gets a few more better games coming it’s way but for now I got games like Metal Gear Solid Collection, Uncharted Golden Abyss and Gravity Rush to play through. Not sure what I’ll do after that, selling it off might not be a bad idea (unless Starbound is suddenly announced).

starkirby5 @ 2013-04-20T01:16:00

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:17:04 +0000

http://hoshinotabi.tumblr.com/

Hype Machine Radio - March 2013

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 17:05:26 +0000

Hype Machine Radio - February 2013

Mon, 04 Feb 2013 03:05:27 +0000

Site Update: Refocus

Sun, 13 Jan 2013 18:04:17 +0000

It’s been almost a year now since I last posted. I was planning on carrying on posting various articles last year but other more pressing issues popped up. First, Valve’s addictive virtual hat economy which I’ve sort of left since the better half of last year and then finally prioritizing a few things in the real world.

Having said all that, here I am, not sure exactly what to do. My interest in RPG Maker games has never been so low, I occasionally drift into the usual sites which have remained loyal to the scene unlike myself. I’ve not touched a RPG Maker since the last review I wrote up here and that was over a year ago. I don’t think I’ll start playing those games anytime soon so I’ll need to refocus my articles elsewhere.

I had a quick glance at my blog’s stats, WordPress gives a good breakdown on what I did right and it seems Skyrim with all it’s trouble is the most popular topic here even though I briefly mentioned a few things I had trouble with. These bugs have not yet been fixed officially and the game has been out for over a year now. Such is the pile of trash that Bethesda released that fall.

The theme I’m using has added an annoying footer whenever you scroll so I’ll have to either change it or try to just ignore it. For now I’ll leave it as it is.

Finally, I purchased Playstation Plus for a couple of years when Deus Ex: Human Revolution was on there, such a brilliant game. I wasn’t expecting a masterpiece when I first saw it but it instantly became the best PS3 game I played. I doubt any other game will top it in the PS3’s shelf-life.

Until my next post (hopefully not in almost a year’s time again), cheerio.

January 2013

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 05:39:21 +0000

December 2012

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 20:00:34 +0000

November 2012

Sat, 03 Nov 2012 18:04:51 +0000

October 2012

Sun, 30 Sep 2012 17:21:39 +0000

September 2012

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 01:29:53 +0000

August 2012

Wed, 01 Aug 2012 03:06:34 +0000

July 2012

Mon, 02 Jul 2012 21:30:54 +0000

June 2012

Fri, 01 Jun 2012 05:34:54 +0000

May 2012

Thu, 03 May 2012 00:17:52 +0000

April 2012

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:45:17 +0000

March 2012

Fri, 02 Mar 2012 21:28:25 +0000

Spiral Knights: Missions Impressions

Fri, 24 Feb 2012 01:51:05 +0000

It’s been a while since I played Spiral Knights (or posted here). Usually I would just log onto craft something and leave, I lost any incentive to carry on fighting the same old enemies day after day. To freshen things up, Three Rings recently released a big update which includes the much anticipated missions to flesh out the game plot and give rewards to the players based on that.

My initial reaction was positive, there’s a new main screen to greet the player with easy-to-read mission descriptions. Initial missions are easy click-and-watch stuff but later on it starts to get slightly more pro-active. However, as a long-time player, playing through tier 1-graded levels was very tedious and the rewards were underwhelming. Perhaps if I was new, then it’d be a good experience (although most of the gear was dead-end junk) but I guess Three Rings are trying to claw in new players who are on a sharp decline recently if steam statistics are anything to go by and from my own first-hand experience.

Back to missions, they are split into four different types. You have the ranked, prestige, arcade and expanded missions. The ranked missions are always there but locked to your current rank so you have no choice but to work your way through every mission on offer. Prestige is a daily mission (or two) which can be completed only once (like the ranked missions) and they offer considerably more points than ranked missions. Arcade is a guise for the bog-standard clockwork levels and expanded missions are reserved for paying players although these are repeatable.

My main problem is the prestige point system which acts like an experience system although it’s pointless (excuse the pun) to describe it like that. It’s more of an ego-driven system which no doubt the rich Spiral Knights players will shoot for. Not all will of course, I happen to be quite “rich” thanks to cross-trading with Team Fortress 2 but I’m not willing to shell out my hard-earned gains on such trivial things especially when the missions start to demand you turn in some pretty expensive items like a Mega Magnus. This will weed out most of the player base and null the impact of missions I feel much like the game’s PvP modes although the jury’s still out on that, time will tell.

The positive to all this is that I’m playing Spiral Knights again but I can see myself resuming back to crafting duties again once the missions dry up or go out of my reach. However I did notice some missions seem to be making this not a good way to burn up mist energy although the material market may pick up again, who knows? I thing I do know is that crystal energy will always be more valuable to sensible players than some ego points, that’s what the new mission mode essentially boils down to.

February 2012

Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:39:42 +0000

RPG Maker Review: To the Moon

Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:20:03 +0000

Fly Me to the Moon

To the Moon is the first commercial RPG Maker game I’ve played as well as being my first review of 2012. A game made by a small indie team called Freebird Games, it’s available for download on their site at the price of nearly £10 (a generous one-hour trial is available too). This price is pretty hefty for a game offering only fours of game play but I’ll give my opinion on what it’s worth down below.

The game follows Dr. Watts and his travelling colleague, Dr. Rosalene as they seek to fulfil a request from a dying man named Johnny (it has something to do with going “to the moon”). Unlike most doctors in our world, they possess technology that can manipulate and change the memories of humans. I couldn’t help but draw parallels with the film Inception however the writer (well the guy that did most of the work on this game) mentioned in an interview that it was influenced more by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and a few other films I never watched (but plan to do so as soon as possible).

This game allows mouse input so you can point and click instead of using the arrow keys to move around but I mainly used it to scan the screen for items of interest rather than navigating as it was a little buggy.

The game is described as “tragicomedy” but I felt at times it was mood-breaking and didn’t really work as well as it was intended. It had the odd laugh-at-moments but the general banter between the characters in the story wasn’t very pleasant. I can understand why it was it was included but the small pokes (such as at gaming clichés) fall flat. If you can see past this it’s not a problem but I wanted to mention it as it was the reason why I stopped playing the first time around.

Having said that, the “serious” dialogue is aided by some very clever use of character animation as well as other cool techniques. The graphics are pretty much the sort one would expect in a RPG Maker XP game but it has a few scenes where original artwork is used and this greatly complements the story as it unfolds.

Lotsa rabbits; what’s the story behind this? The many mysteries of To the Moon

There are no crystals to collect or dragons to slay but the story is very human and this is the reason to play the game. It might be better told in a different way altogether but to see the story unravel with it’s various sub-plots reflects the talent of the writer here. Spoilers are a big no-no in my reviews so I’ll refrain from giving details about the backdrop to the story but most of the synopsis is on the official site if you want to read it.

There are no battles in the game as it mainly relies on collecting clues in a level that allows you to travel a bit back in time (in Johnny’s memories). At the end of each memory you have to solve a puzzle by swapping tiles around until they all disappear. Further on into the game, there are various other things to do but nothing special. The majority of the game play serves to keep the player doing stuff for the sake of story progression more than a challenge, it neither adds or detracts from my experiences.

On the other hand, the soundtrack accompanying the game really does add a lot of atmosphere and feeling into the story. It’s used very effectively and I don’t remember an instance where I felt something was out of place.

I played this game in just over three hours contrary to the four-and-a-half hour adventure quoted on the official site but I’m not sure if the in-game clock registered it incorrectly as it felt like more than that.

I can’t help but think To the Moon would’ve been better in a non-RPG Maker platform but at the same time, the program scripting behind it is very sound and does the game justice. As someone who’s used to playing RPG Maker games for free, the cost of the game is a little dear in my opinion but at the same time, the work behind everything in this game is something I really do appreciate. For £10 I’m not sure there are many games that can rival this game on a personal level. If you’re still unsure, you can get a refund if you’re not happy after playing the game. How’s that for product confidence?

Overall verdict: good

January 2012

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:57:01 +0000

Review of 2011

Tue, 03 Jan 2012 23:06:02 +0000

The year 2011 proved to be “a game of two halves” for me in terms of my personal life but gaming-wise it was one of the better years of gaming for me. The motivation to play video games was still burning bright through the entire year right until the end which was pretty rare for me as I’m easily susceptible to ‘gaming burnout’.

I’ll be going in the order I got around to playing the following games last year, this is the first part and a final part will follow as soon as I’ve written up that section. On a side note, I won’t be delving into any RPG maker games as I covered all the ones I played in my game reviews.

During much of January I was playing through the much-anticipated third Golden Sun game, Golden Sun: Dark Dawn (DS). Just a year or so ago, I got around to beating both it’s preceding games and my expectations for it to deliver were high. The various gameplay elements that carried the prequels forward weren’t as compelling a third time in and I felt the game got a little too easy at some point in the game. Furthermore, Golden Sun always had eight playable characters split into two parties that you could swap around in battles but some of the latecomers to the party arrived a little too late and this didn’t help with the story side of things. The soundtrack was forgettable as well. I was better off not playing the original games as Golden Sun: Dark Dawn is one of the better RPGs on the Nintendo DS but comparing the three games is unavoidable.

Dark Dawn’s story runs many parallels with previous Golden Sun games

After I was done with Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, I picked up Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective (DS). I had already seen some footage of the Japanese version prior to it’s European release. The game had me instantly hooked from the off as I loved the the mystery surrounding Ghost Trick’s story. The shortfalls in the game were the trail-and-error way of solving puzzles that were transferred over from the Phoenix Wright series and the dialogue can get a little heavy but Dark Dawn prep me well here and I’d say the ending was definitely worth seeing. The character you control, Sissel, had all the qualities of being a good IP for Capcom but poor sales will probably mean there will be no planned sequels or similar risks taken in the future which is a shame as I enjoyed this way more than the next game I’ll be discussing.

Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Fate of Two Worlds (PS3) was Capcom’s cash cow and for good reason too. Riding on the success of Marvel vs. Capcom 2, this game was hotly anticipated and I brought it on pre-order without a second thought. It was only later that I realised it came with on-disc DLC as well as some seriously annoying elements within the game that made me regret ever hearing about the game in the first place. I found the character roster very lacking and the absence of some of my favourite characters like Megaman and Cyclops made me somewhat frustrated but I overlooked this and chose to enjoy the game with it’s relatively newer mascots.

“I can’t control it!”

Playtime did not last long however as I found the game a little bit ridiculous when it came to character balancing. Sentinels were everywhere online and offline, I was constantly beaten by a Phoenix player using the X factor to it’s full potential. Maybe I was just a bad player but the advice that was thrown at similar players discussing these issues was to spend hours in the training mode, I tried but couldn’t face the music. I learnt to play fighting games from regular battling but that was impossible unless you mimicked the play-styles off your opponents. Also, clearing the mission mode was pretty much hopeless without an arcade stick and to rub some salt into the wound, Capcom indrectly admitted MvC3 was incomplete by announcing and later releasing Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Essentially, the same game but with more characters, refined gameplay as well as improved online features. I didn’t buy that standalone DLC as I quit this game indefinitely after getting tired of trying to like MvC3.

Sometime during the spring, I decided it was time to get Plants vs Zombies: Game of the Year Edition (PC). It gave me a much-needed change from the previous games I had played for those last few months. The “hat factor” might have had some influence on me too as the game gave two free hats to Team Fortress 2 owners but that fad wore off fast. The game itself was easy at the start and got very frantic near the end levels. I liked the way special units were handed out and the mini-games themselves were a blast. It’s a game that I’ll be playing on-and-off for sure. I had the chance to play on the DS too and the game is just as good on there.

Zombie-zapping, plant-shooting fun

Professor Layton and the Lost Future (DS) completed the trilogy of Layton games on the DS. At the time of its release back in 2010, many critics called it the best Layton game out of the three which is quite something considering how good the first two games were. I played it with some expectation that it will be some more of the same as the others but Level-5 managed to freshen things up a little. I liked the mini-games, the toy car one being my favourite. The story book was great fun and collecting and arranging those stickers was strangely satisfying. The puzzles themselves, like before, were weaved into the engrossing story which I loved and considered better in most ways to the other Layton games. I didn’t particularly like the abundance of lock puzzles though and that’s the only negative thing I remember about it back then. As this was the final Layton game to grace the DS, I can definitely say that I’ve enjoyed all three. It’s definitely one of my favourite series at the moment.

“CORRECT”

Super Scribblenauts (DS) set out to improve on the original Scribblenauts game (which was hyped to the stars above). Another 2010 release, I expected that it’ll be up for grabs for cheap by the following year and it was. Having played the original for a short time, I didn’t hold out much hope of enjoying this game but the game surprised me with great use of the newly-added adjectives feature. Completing levels weren’t too hard although some of the objectives were a little vague at first (thankfully, the hints helped). The messy controls were fixed although I didn’t really find it hinder me that much in the first game. A game much like Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3, this game is definitely better than its predecessor although the idea behind it all wore off big time by the time it was released.

Having played the awe-inspiring Ōkami, I didn’t have any second thoughts about playing Ōkamiden (DS) except for the sad fact that Clover Studios was not working on this game. However, the people behind it’s sequel did more than enough to satisfy many fans (although probably not all as I did notice a lot of backtracking and some other minor niggles; can’t remember them though). The fights were difficult, the world was smaller than on the PS2 but the compelling story and chiby art style presentation made it a worthy sequel.

I spent much of early summer was spent catching up with Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (DS), a highly customisable RPG trying to appeal to the wider audience. Initially, I didn’t like the fact that there was hardly a story behind the characters that you control other than the main protogonist and evne then the story was just treading on old ground. Eventually, I grew to like the game for what it was. I spent many hours grinding down grotto maps and completing my file to 100%. The hardest time I had was with the wardrobe thing as it was a weekly WiFi download thing where you got some items randomly but using a few “secret” techniques I managed to get all of them. The optional quests took a while to complete too due to them not being released when I had finished the main quests. The game was dubbed to be the most difficult game in the series and a lot of the monsters were definitely no pushover. Grinding up levels with metal slimes made short work of that though.

This is obviously not my own party (or my screenshot)

While waiting for the WiFi stuff in the DQIX, I decided to get Dragon Quest VI: Realms of Reverie (DS). I remember playing the first Dragon Quest and enjoying the game for hours on end and wanted to try out the game on a SNES emulator due to the fact that it was never released in the western shores but I didn’t stick to it for long back then. This time was different and I managed to beat the game. It was a difficult game to get into as the two-world system was confusing and travelling back-and-forth with random encounters (something I didn’t miss in DQIX) didn’t help alleviate that. However, the game did a lot of things right like the class system, exceptional character dialogue, crazy transportations and many other things that have escaped my memory. The purists will prefer this over DQIX but I liked DQIX more as it felt more accustomed to the DS and more importantly in 2011.

In June Steam released their first free-to-play games and one of them was Spiral Knights (PC). An online action-adventure game borrowing elements from the handheld Zelda games. I hardly play it these days but for a quarter of the year, it was my number one game to play but one can only do the same task over and over again just for the sake of feeling like you’re working towards something (the bane of MMOs). When I stopped playing regularly, the energy prices (that are required for many things in the game) was sky high thanks to Three Rings decision to introduce an elevator pass but recently this has dropped again to decent enough levels. My review can be found here.

In mid-November I got the critically acclaimed action RPG, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PS3). It was being hailed as the “game-of-the-year” across the internet so I couldn’t pass up on this game. Initially, I thought Bethesda had skipped the PS3 but I had forgotten my reasoning behind that (someone on Twitter reminded me it was on PS3 too). Anyway, when I loaded this game up, it was pretty much gaming haven. The vast scale of the game meant I had seemingly limitless ways in which to play the game. I spend many hours side-tracking from the main quest and doing various things for about 50 hours including forging my own set of armour and doing various explorations without some random NPC telling me where to go. It wasn’t until I decided to go into far-away cities that I came across the reason why I never heard about the PS3 version of the game in the first place. Bethesda didn’t provide any copies to media outlets. In fact some IGN guy had to buy his own copy to test out a major issue with game (which he later confirmed although this isn’t exactly the same intensity of lag I’m experiencing at the moment).

One of the many things to do in Skyrim is to simply stare at the amazing scenery around you

I was pretty distraught as it ruined what was at first a great game. Patches came in to remedy the situation but they didn’t work in the long run and I had to use some frustrating workarounds (which didn’t fix anything at all to be honest) to play the game like turning off auto-saving, rebuilding my PS3’s file database, re-installing the Skyrim data etc. I also came across bugs that prevented me from continuing on with the game like the civil war bugs I mentioned earlier last month and a bucket-load of others which are all listed on the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages (a great source for Skyrim information by the way). However I persevered and got my platinum trophy, after this I gradually lost my motivation to put up with the bug-ridden game but completed as many quests as I could using USEP to guide me. I can say that I’ve done almost everything in the game except the Bard quests which are too buggy for me to attempt at this stage.

The game “breaks” after a certain point where enemies get very easy and you don’t need to bother worrying about having optimised gear and the dungeon crawls get very repetitive too. The game was advertised as an “epic” and I got about 230 hours out of it (not counting the hours I lost in backtracking through previous saves because of freezes, lag and quest bugs and not to mention the delightful loading screens) before putting it down, it definitely has a limit to it’s appeal but I had hoped it lasted longer. Here’s hoping the next patch Bethesda release addresses the issues they insist they are going to fix.

I also got to play a much more quality-tested game called Super Mario 3D Land (3DS), finally a reason to actually own a 3DS. Having not played the previous most-recent Mario games on the Wii, I was coming into this off the back from New Super Mario Bros. The levels were very creative and finding the stars proved to be quite a challenge but the most challenging aspect was to visualise this game in 3D because for some reason, it never worked for me. I tried the two different modes, held the 3DS high in the air, under my foot but nothing helped. All I saw was a blur so I guess I was in the minority that had to play it in 2D but I still enjoyed the feel I got of various past Mario games implemented in here. The game was only difficult because I couldn’t get used to the analogue controls and kept misdirecting my jumps (I wish Nintendo had given the option to use the d-pad for this reason).

I used this screenshot before and I’m not afraid to use it again…

Thus ends my recap of 2011. I can look back on this post and learn from the mistakes I made with some titles and avoid becoming a paying beta tester as well as pay for half a game while the companies in question release the superior version several months later. I’m pretty weary of critical reviews as well now since most of them lack the guts to write honestly rather than write sonnets to the hands that feed them. I’m not sure how 2012 will go but I have a feeling I won’t be playing as many games as I have done in 2011 but time will tell.

Jensen Sportag vs The Hype Machine - Best of 2011 Zeitgeist Mix

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:45:52 +0000

Little Dragon vs The Hype Machine - Best of 2011 Zeitgeist Mix

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:21:08 +0000

The Go! Team vs The Hype Machine - Best of 2011 Zeitgeist Mix

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 20:13:42 +0000

The Internet OFWGKTA vs The Hype Machine - Best of 2011 Zeitgeist Mix

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 17:09:01 +0000

RAC vs The Hype Machine - Best of 2011 Zeitgeist Mix

Sat, 31 Dec 2011 18:11:04 +0000

Skyrim: The Buggy Civil War Quest Line

Thu, 22 Dec 2011 00:05:59 +0000

A week ago, I had the pleasure of playing through a horrendously buggy and dull quest line when I joined the Imperial Legion. I’m sure it’s just as bad on the other side (Stormcloaks) but there is the potential to wreck your progress if you fail to take heed ahead of starting each and every quest you do (like most other quests in Skyrim). I’m playing the PS3 version so I don’t know if this is just a bug for this platform.

I’ll save myself the trouble of mentioning cross-linked bugs with this quest line and the one that made me post this as a reference to others as well as myself is the “The Battle for Fort Dunstad” or replace Dunstad with whatever the fort’s name is because there are three occasions where the player is hand-guided into these repetitive tasks. All of them have the following steps:

1) Report to the field commander or Legate Rikke if you chose to side with the Imperials

2) Go and meet fellow soldiers at a specific point indicated by Rikke

3) Raid the fort mentioned in the quest title and kill all waves of enemy soldiers which respawn until you kill enough of them

The problems I faced:

1) I can’t report to Legate Rikke. There is no option despite trying many things until I decided to check the unofficial Skyrim wiki (UESP). I found out that using the ice form shout to turn Rikke to an ice statue worked (I talked to her after she’s defrosted).

2) After getting the quest update, there is no marker on the map to meet the soldiers. If there is, chances are the soldiers won’t be there.

3) If the soldiers are there, follow them to the fort but the chances of finding an empty fort is probably 50/50 thus making you start over. If your game is stuttering really bad here but you manage to get the enemy soldiers to load up, you might freeze due to the high number of character models on-screen. I froze once and had slide-show fights the rest of the time, not fun.

So as you can see, in order to complete one quest, you’re hoping many things go your way. I noticed that saving in-between the steps was a no-no and the best place to save is somewhere other than the area your camp is (before you report to duty). It took me at most on one occasion, roughly forty tries to get it working for the first fort and less on the other forts but I couldn’t really figure out the issue here except that I was lagging really bad in the area around the fort and had temporary freezes while the game was loading up the scenery.

The only fix I know of is go and do the main quest line and skip these petty fort raids but you miss out on the War Hero trophy if you’re after that. I still managed to get the War Hero trophy and that’s all I did it for really as the climax to the end of the war is disappointing and probably not worth the hassle unless you’re trophy hunting or a completionist (not really possible in this game anyway). I can’t wait for the Bards quests, I already know they’re bugged thanks to all the players posting about it on Bethesda’s own forums as well as other sites.

Skyrim: Thoughts on Radiant Quests

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 01:48:25 +0000

When Skyrim director Todd Howard was busy hyping up Skyrim and what it offers to gamers, he mentioned something that caught my attention, radiant quests. Quests which are randomly generated by some ingenious coding by Bethesda. This system has a serious flaw in that the NPCs you are asked to go kill, be it the Jarl or the Innkeeper, resulting in your target to be either missing in action or already dead. You, yourself, might have killed them already or they were killed somewhere in the background while you were travelling to a different location or the game just decides to bug your quest for no reason.

I already have some quests to ‘kill this giant and that bandit leader’ but I hope they’re still alive when I eventually bother to get there. All these radiant quests get very tedious and lethargic after getting a taste of a few of them and this doesn’t help. Radiant quests are ever present in any guilds you join and the worst radiant quests you’ll find is definitely in the Thieves Guild. I mean, to get the One with the Shadows trophy, you must do several radiant quests for two lazy bums across various cities. You can only take two at a time and most of them are pretty much the same thing. Coupled with the Thief trophy, these are a pain to get even if you choose to do fishing jobs just to ease the burden. I also believe that the former trophy doesn’t actually activate with quests until I complete the entire Thieves Guild questline but not sure if that’s true. I’ve done more than what I’ve seen other players quote (five or six) but not got the main quests to restore glory in any cities. That skeleton key is too useful at this stage…

It’s nice that Bethesda implemented this system but I would rather just have an option to turn it off as I already have several misc quests which are bugged as a result of a flawed system that probably didn’t get enough testing (much like the rest of the game I suppose). For now, I’ll just have to avoid any Jarls and Innkeepers looking for some random adventurer to help slay the local terror.

December 2011

Thu, 01 Dec 2011 19:59:03 +0000

Now Playing: Skyrim; First Impressions, PS3 Lag

Fri, 18 Nov 2011 21:55:25 +0000

So I finally got Skyrim (on the PS3) and what a wonderful game it is. I got it as a gift but probably would’ve had second thoughts if I was buying it for myself. I hate to start my first impressions on a bad note but I might as well get it out of the way.

This is mainly due to a few major issues with the game on the PS3 players across the internet are reporting. From my experience of playing the game for roughly over 15 hours, I’ll comment on the following:

Standard TV compatibility. As Bethesda designed Skyrim for a HD TV, the screen on a SD TV is not big enough to fit the entire game screen so the left and right side of the main frame is cut off by a few centimetres. Also the use of narrow text (inevitable as this game uses the variable width format) makes reading the text on the screen very difficult to read in some cases.

The first issue is not much of a problem, you get some dialogue cut-off but in battles, exploring Skyrim, this isn’t a problem. The second one can be a huge deterant for gamers if they prefer to sit far away from the TV. Not only that but if you plan on getting this game to play on a SD TV, make sure you are using RGB (or scart?) cable and not the composite cable Sony bundled in with the PS3. This makes a huge difference with the text and I only had problems reading tightly-squeezed text rather than the normal-width text (not that matters much as I always keep check on my quest log and inventory). One thing I noticed on reddit was someone complaining about not seeing the notification text at the top-right of the screen, I guess they have the rounded-screens because on my 21″ flat-screen TV, it was perfectly visible.

So many bugs. Yes, this is probably expected and it’s no excuse for a well-established developer like Bethesda. There was a day-one patch to get rid of the major game-breaking bugs so I didn’t find any of those and to be honest the worse bug I got was probably falling to my death from one feet (this set me back a few hours so I was pretty annoyed but whatever). In the grand scale of things, I can live with them as the game offers too much to just some bugs that occur occasionally deter you from playing the game however the next issue will probably lead to many to stop playing unless Bethesda release a patch.

This is like the bug from Team Fortress 2 where players appear to be swimming on land

Game save bug. This is the one that has me looking over my shoulder every time I decide to play Skyrim. The PS3 version has so many players reporting that after a good amount of playing the game, you get major drops in the frame-rate as shown by this video (this also shows excessive loading times which doesn’t look like fun at all).

Some people have said this has the same save bug as Fallout: New Vegas which is slightly worrying as Bethesda never fixed that as far as I know. Apart from all that, this game is highly enjoyable and warrants the praise it’s being getting from reviewers although I can’t help think why there are so few PS3 reviews for it.

The graphics are really quite jaw-dropping in many places and encountering my first snowfall was pretty. The character models look a bit dated though as do the animations that look like they are walking on air but it’s not anything that stopped me from playing, just gave me and others watching me play, a good laugh.

The battle system isn’t all that compelling, you use L1 and R1 to attack. I went with a Nord mainly focusing on one-handed swords with a shield on my left. Too bad I couldn’t equip the sword on my left as I’m left-handed. I also use minor spells in case of emergencies and found the fire spell to be highly effective in the early parts of the game (I think I still am in the early parts).

My personal highlights so far include:

Clearing the first dungeon and fighting a hoard of undead soldiers while running through a trap-filled ruin
Got my first Dragon shout, it’s pretty useful
Falling one feet to my death near a mountain, this was just hilarious but annoying at the same time
Entering Riverwood‘s woodcutter’s house and upsetting his child. He chased me out of town (didn’t want to kill him for job opportunities) and I jumped into the river for safety. That got my blocking skills up at least but he always sounds angry now whenever I speak to him.
Figuring out that holding the activate button allows you to hold an item
Beating up my first-ever elf companion because my guild ordered me to (this was a difficult quest but the victim was cool about it)
Making much-needed money through alchemy and smithing new gear to buy my first house
As a first-timer to the Elder Scrolls series, the enormous amount of books in the game allowed me to catch a glimpse into the lore and history of the previous games. The various NPCs added to this immersion through their I spent an hour at one bookcase just reading books in this game…

I’ll post more on Skyrim I’m sure but for now, it’s back to the game itself!