GTFO, Fable

I'm done with this game. It's not that it's a bad game, per se, it's just kind of cumbersome in a lot of ways, so that it's been only barely holding my interest with it's middlingly cool combat. The plot is unremarkable to this point, and a lot of the voice acting is shit. I don't like the linearity of the world, either. It's all these tiny zones with narrow paths through them that you are totally unable to stray from. It reminds me of FFX or that LotR 'B-team' RPG they came out with that totally aped FFX. Plus, the game just locked up on my 360, costing me an hour and a half or so of time that I'm not willing to put back into it. I guess the moral of this story is that you had to be there at the time.

I wish Rock Band was getting the new Metallica album instead of Guitar Hero III. They shred pretty well this time around.

Retrograde Motion

Gaming as a contemporary experience--being perpetually "in the now"--moves along at quite a fast clip, and it's just about impossible to keep current if your tastes extend to more than one genre. Every now and then you just have to ignore the new for a while and take a closer look at things already past their retail "sell by" date.

Which is what I'm attempting to do now. One look over at the sidebars of this blog will tell you just how many games I have laying around unfinished, and in many cases, unopened. It's entertainment in the bank, and what I find I'd like more of at the present is more money in the bank, which provides a nice secondary motivation for this endeavor.

To this end, I wrapped up New Super Mario Bros. this evening. That only took two and a half years! What is there to say about this game? It's the latest in a legendary series of 2D platformers, the core platforming series in all of game-dom. It's about what you'd expect if you'e ever played SMB 3 or Super Mario World, which is to say it's a rock-solid fun experience.

I don't really know what came over me yesterday, but I wanted to jump into something new. I thought to finally start the borrowed copy of Assassin's Creed sitting on my TV stand, but instead I jumped into a couple of things.

The first was Fable. The original Xbox didn't have much of anything remarkable that couldn't be had on the PS2 eventually, but Fable was one of that handful of Xbox exclusive highlights. Back around the time of it's original release, the hype levels had risen so high that even I--in Japan, and way over my head into FFXI--took notice of the coming 'RPG revolution.'

Well, I think it's fair to say that Fable was hardly a revolution, and the game has apparently taken it's knocks in backlash since, but being an Xbox owner by virtue of backward compatibility (remember that shit, Sony?), I wanted to see what all of the fuss had been about. Also, this game can be had for like $7.99 these days if you know where to look. I've played it for about 5 hours or so this weekend, and I like it. The character models are kind of unsightly, and the menu system is not-so-pretty (though not terrible), and it kind of has that "last-gen-in-a-bad-kind-of-way" look to it overall, but the game is fun.

I like the battle and experience systems. So far I have kind of a jedi-like warrior-mage hybrid character who relies on his weapon primarily for damage but has a few 'force' tricks like shooting lightning, an area-of-effect force push with knock-back and damage, and a teleport to just behind the target so you can cut them down without being countered. So far my good/evil alignment is still around the middle, edging a bit more toward good. I find it hard to be an out and out asshole to people, but at the same time I'm not going to bend over backwards for everyone, like that guy who had been bitten by zombie werewolves and wanted to join my escort party through the swamps. Yeah, that's going to end well. Also, that mother who wants the remedy for her son who ate the magic mushroom can suck it. It would take way too much energy to track down the other mushrooms for that witch to make the remedy.

The other thing I threw in this weekend is Zelda: Twilight Princess for Wii. I basically just decided to sit down with it one good time before blindly trading it in for credit at Game Trader. I thought if anything I'd get the Gamecube version since it'd have a traditional control scheme. I've changed my mind. After about three hours with the game, it seems pretty damned good, Wii-mote and all, plus I read that the GC version isn't widescreen and only allows you to map two of your items to buttons rather than the 3 the Wii version allows. Other differences include the spin attack having to be charged on GC, whereas it's instant on Wii (which is handy), and interestingly, the games environments are all mirrored from one version to the other.

See, Link has always been a lefty, but Nintendo found that playtesters liked to use the nunchuck in their left hands and the Wii-mote (sword swings) in the right hand, and so they mirrored the entire game to retcon Link into a righty for the sake of soccer-moms and shogakusei everywhere. Whatever, I don't care, I just think it'd be cool to have the option to play the GC mirror image, since at places it apparently evokes environs from Ocarina of Time (although that game gets way too much worship anyway).

I'd like to plow through Fable kind of quickly and then pick up and continue Twilight Princess. Zelda's title demo really, really reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus, by the way. It's uncanny. Elsewise this week, I finished up Diablo II act III, killing the first of the Prime Evils, Mephisto. Bastard dropped a set piece that I already had. I had to create a Diablo mule, too, so I spent a few hours this week idling in the first act's rogue encampment to get the dude enough playtime so he wouldn't get deleted after 10 days. Good music there, but not as good as Diablo I's Tristram music. I also played some Castle Crashers online with my college buddy Jonathan, jzpeeps. Great game. Definitely better in co-op, though.

Addiction--No Laughing Matter

The mind of a compulsive gambler is a very unreal place. Just one more play, it thinks, that'll be the one. Which is how it came to pass that this evening I spent near two hours' time more than I had anticipated with Fable II Pub Games, a clever bit of marketing if ever there was one. I had intended to sit down with it for 5 or 10 minutes just to check it out, since I was able to get it for free, more or less--I just had to pre-order Fable II (which can later be cancelled if I decide I don't want it). But upon jumping into action and noting there were points I was accruing toward 'gambler levels,' I just had to keep going, taking hit after hit, going into Fable II world debt borrowing money for more and more chips to keep playing the slots and that card game (which is pretty cool). The one with the dice I didn't really get to tonight, but probably will when the urge to gamble strikes again.

I was really into the various slots games, betting the max amount of chips each time, racking up more gambling points, more chips, and more game modes, concept art, and achievements unlocked. At this rate, if I ever play Fable II, I should be pretty loaded from the outset.

This thing even ate up enough of my free time tonight that I wasn't able to get in a session of Diablo II on battle.net. There's always tomorrow... and Bionic Commando Re-armed then, as a matter of fact, a game I've been waiting on for a good while. I have to go with the PSN version here, for the superior d-pad.