Reducing the Pile

At long last, I completed Etrian Odyssey. This is my first DS game actually finished. Completed, in this case, is only a technicality, since the main game and it's narrative end with the boss at the end of the 25th floor. As I've mentioned before, there are still 5 more floors left to map with the difficulty level ratcheted up a few notches. I want to see through the mapping at least; we'll just have to see about the bonus bosses. This game has been quite long and satisfying enough without having to grind, grind, grind, to reset and refine your characters' skill point allocations. That said, my party is very well-rounded, and took down the 'last boss' at level 61 all around with no trouble at all. I could probably handle whatever the 6th stratum has in store.

In another effort to down the Pile, I've picked up Shadow of the Colossus, concurrent with the same effort by the guys on the new 1UP FM podcast I picked up. This game is incredible. I've taken down 7 of the colossi so far, and each battle has been absolutely epic. In all my years of gaming, I've never seen anything like this. The colossi are enormous, and their efforts to shake you off as you scale their giant bodies looking for their Achilles' heel have you with a death-grip on your controller, thanks to the clever decision to have the 'hold on' button set to R1. I kind of wish I had a Dual Shock 3 to see how much rumble would add to the experience. The flying and swimming colossi battles I've seen so far were just awesome.

An interesting contrast to the battles is the world itself, which is the definition of tranquil natural beauty. You have all manner of terrain with expansive vistas and soft ambient lighting that makes it seem like there's a light mist over the land. There's hardly anything at all happening here outside the passage of time; water flows, birds fly, lizards crawl, and cyclopean golems slumber.

I tracked down a near-mint copy of MGS3: Subsistence, and spent a couple of hours last night playing the original 1987 Metal Gear for MSX2. It's cool. It's pretty hard, though; it really takes patience, because Snake hasn't learned to move in more than 4 directions yet, and his bullets only travel about 20 feet before disappearing into thin air. Thankfully, there is a save game feature in the emulated ROM for PS2. I want to get through both this and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake.

Metal Gear Solid Saga Completed

I just cleared MGS4 on Naked Normal, and got ranked as EAGLE.

I won't go into any plot spoilers, so don't worry. From start to finish, I loved the game. Yes, the cut-scenes are long and can be kind of campy at times, but hey, it's Metal Gear. You know what you're getting into with this fifth entry (in the Solid series alone). The gameplay has been well refined, and its more fun by virtue of it's game mechanics than any previous MGS. Pretty much every aspect of the massive and complicated series narrative is explained and neatly tied up here, and there are some pretty big surprises, as well.

It was just awesome, and I'm looking forward to another playthrough sometime on a higher difficulty setting, and some Metal Gear Online action. Hopefully I can sort through all the crap Konami wants you to register for just to play the online mode (which sounds cool, though it remains to be seen firsthand).

It will be interesting to see if Konami wants to continue the Metal Gear franchise somehow, but hopefully if they do it will be with Kojima's blessing and guidance at the very least.

I could think of some cool scenarios both within the MGS3 through MGS4 time period and beyond, possibly featuring as the lead role The Boss, Big Boss (another MGS: PO seems like a certainty at some point), Ocelot, Raiden, or even Solid Snake himself, in the years between Solid 1 & 2, in setting up Philanthropy... it's a rich mythos, with a lot of possibilities.

Addendum: To round out my week plus of Metal Gear mania, I put some time into MG Online, downloaded the awesome (and free) MG Database on PSN, and watched what must have been around 2 hours of 'making of' features on the limited edition's bonus blu-ray, as well as listening to the game's soundtrack at work.

MGO seems pretty cool. It definitely has a more measured pace than an FPS. I wish the characters were a little less generic-looking, but the game is fun, and the Drebin Point system carries over from the main game, meaning you can select your load-out at the beginning of each round, plus tweak your character's skill bonuses in various areas. I'm not one to pay a whole lot of multi-player stuff, but I want to spend some more time with MGO. I guess I'm not ready for a second play-through of the game, but not ready to let go entirely, either.

Konami did something completely awesome, redeeming themselves in my eyes for the major hassle that getting into MGO was. They gave us the kick-ass Metal Gear Database, which is kind of like a giant Wiki covering all of the canon entries in the series from the MSX2 games through MGS4. It's a great help in understanding the series extremely complicated lore. I got it and spent the next couple of hours reading every entry I could to answer my own questions, and for the most part was satisfied. I'd still like to know how and when Solidus was created/given birth to. I made sure to click on every single entry, though there were a lot I didn't read, to get 100% in the database, but as far as I can tell, I didn't unlock anything special.

For once, I am completely happy with the bonuses in a game's limited edition. The soundtrack is a nice bonus, but the documentary blu-ray is absolutely killer. My favorite part was the half-hour or so look into Kojima Productions during the making of the game. I don't know why, but I kind of envisioned Kojima having his own big cushy office. What he really has is more of just a corner cube a little nicer than all the rest. It's also cool seeing all the people who do the art and all the other stuff, and them hashing out problems and differences of opinion when making the game. The other features on the disc were great, too. Getting to see all the voice actors blew my mind. I'm pretty sure Vamp's VA was in Pulp Fiction, and Raiden's VA is totally not what I'd expected. The stuff about Ryan Payton was interesting, too.

How can MGS be so awesome? I'm going to try to track down a copy of MGS3 Subsistence so I have MG and MG2. I have the NES Metal Gear, but a) I suck at it, b) it's apparently drastically different from the MSX2 original. Plus, I played MGS3's normal version. I want to re-play it with the MGS4-style camera sometime. The Boss remains one of my favorite characters in the series, and the ending one of my favorite scenes, too.

Guns of the Patriots

Today being the release date of Metal Gear Solid 4, I got my stuff done at work and took off an hour early to give myself some quality time with the game this evening. I purchased the limited edition at (sigh) EB/GameStop. First impressions: wow!

I've spent about four and a half hours with the game so far, between the attract mode (the PMC advertisments), virtual weapons range and mission briefing, and the main game. First off, the controls have been improved tremendously, though taking cover on walls and shifting between standing, crouching, and prone remain kind of clunky. Camo is much improved over MGS3. I got a kick out of Snake's Ipod, and the new Drebin weapon upgrade system looks like it's going to be pretty deep. I chose to play through my first time on the 2nd of the 4 difficulty levels offered.

Prior to today, I'd been concentrating my efforts on Etrian Odyssey, and will continue to do so on days I take public transport to and from work. I've made it down to B22F as of this writing, and it was awesome to get down into the fifth stratum and uncover more of the truth about the labyrinth. It was a pleasant surprise to make it down there without having the secret spoiled to me beforehand (though I had my suspicions). Though B25F is where the main game ends, there is actually a sixth stratum that goes down to a 30th floor with extra hard bosses and such. I wonder what its motif might be...

18 Floors Down the Yggdrasil Labyrinth

Since my last update, I've been playing Etrian Odyssey almost exclusively. I thought that after hopping back in I would just make my way through the third stratum (B11-B15), but once I got on a roll I couldn't stop, and as of this writing I'm busy mapping out B18 in the fourth stratum, the Sandy Barrens. The plot (the garnish that it is) has started to kick in, and I'm eager to see where it goes, and what the final strata are like.

I finally unlocked the Ronin and Hexer classes, not that I plan to use them much. My core unit of Protecter, Landsknecht, Combat Medic (Caduceus FTW!), Survivalist, and Troubador, has yet to encounter any F.O.E. they couldn't take down. This game is crazy addictive. It takes just the very core gameplay of your typical turn-based JRPG, adds a nice character customization system, and then puts you in a long dungeon-crawl and leaves you to do the mapping yourself with the stylus. It may not sound like a lot of fun, but in practice it's great. And the story is told in first-person, as if by a DM, so there's no melodramatic latter-day FF protagonist angsty crap.

In other news, I played just long enough of GTA IV to get past that one mission I was on, and I failed once again to get past Green Grass and High Tides on hard guitar in Rock Band.

May Pick-up recap

I made a conscious effort to cut back on gaming expenditures this month, and had it not been for my Wii arriving mid-month as a debt payment from a friend, I wouldn't have bought any games whatsoever.  I was compelled to pick up a few things, though:

I had to pick up a fresh Wiimote, and of course that meant Wii Play and a nunchuck.  Then, I felt obligated to pick up the reigning champ of casual games, Boom Blox, which rocks.  That would have been the end of this torrid affair, but I spied a copy of Hotel Dusk in the glass case for only $20, and judged that a good deal, and an easy and profitable flip online if I don't care for it, myself.  Not pictured is the Wii component cable I had to run out and buy to maintain some semblance of a respectable resolution and progressive scan in my console gaming.

My Wii came with well-rounded suite of entertainment software applications, gratis, as pictured here:

I have yet to try any of these games besides Wii Play (more like Wii Lame) and Boom Blox.  I'm not too sure about some of them, but I hope to put in a couple hours with them before hawking them toward Wii Point cards or better games for other systems.  Super Mario Galaxy, is of course at the top of this pile.  It's the rest that receive the gaze of suspicion.

Time Wasters of the Week

I went and got Boom Blox for my new Wii, and it's pretty fun. My wife even enjoyed playing that some. At present, however, I only have one wiimote/nunchuk combo. I'll have to get another sometime for some real multiplayer Wii action. I still have yet to try out any of the other Wii games I have. I guess that's what happens when you get a new system complete with a respectable catalogue of it's games dropped on you from out of the blue sky.

Otherwise, I put the final nail into the coffin of Puzzle Quest (at least until the expansion pack) by consulting a FAQ and fast-tracking my way through the crafting system for that last achievement.

The myriad of RPGs on my stack has prompted me to institute a perpetual one-RPG-in-active-progress policy. In other words, there will always be one RPG (as defined by myself) in the rotation, until they're either all finished (not likely), or further notice. Puzzle Quest has just been knocked off, and the next game sliding into that niche once more is Etrian Odyssey. I'll probably just knock out the 3rd stratum and then sub that one out for another RPG, but for now the decision is made.

The only other game I've been playing is GTA IV. I put in around 6 hours or so over this Memorial Day weekend, and I'm up to around 30% or more finished. I'm taking missions on Algonquin from Playboy X, Packie, and Francis at present. I gave up tonight after my 3rd or 4th attempt at a mission taking out some union and mafia goons at a construction site. This game is fun as ever, and the story is starting to get pretty good.

PQ Victory! Plus, a Wii

Beat Lord Bane on my first attempt tonight! And now, I am finally done with Puzzle Quest. I did every quest I could find, and I got all but that one crafting achievement. Maybe I'll come back to the game when the expansion hits for that one, but for now I have to swear off of this thing to get some other games out of the way. It's too addictive!

A good friend has owed me a decent chunk of money for a while now, and as payment he's sent me a Wii and a bunch of games.

Now, this is awesome, but... the thing smells like it's been in a smoker's house for two years, and the wiimotes and nunchuks are all grimy and nasty, not to mention without the original battery covers. Instead, they have a type of cover that holds rechargable AAA batteries and a third party charger kit thingy. So, these wiimotes and nunchuks (and Brunswick Pro Bowling... lol) are going to Game Trader ASAP, and will be replaced by fresh ones (going to have to pick up a Wii Play pack, I suppose). I also need the wi-fi dongle thing if I'm going to get any VC/Wii Ware titles.

I hooked the thing up, though, and it works just fine. The core unit and cords and stuff aren't near as dirty as the controllers, thankfully. I guess I'm going to have to get my Wii game on at some point. I've had 5 pretty solid games gifted to me (3 from this friend, 2 from my brother-in-law). I won't lie though, I'm more excited about VC games than anything Wii native! Guess I'll need to pickup a classic controller or wavebird or something, too. Oh, and I just remembered the thing plays GameCube games as well...

Lord Bane's Bane

For the past week I've been going back and forth between GTA IV and Puzzle Quest, but mostly concentrating on the latter. I'm at the final battle now, but Lord Bane is freaking tough. He gets turn after turn without end.

I went through most of the game relying on the same weapons and spells, namely a Great Axe, which has a 50% chance of awarding an extra turn anytime I do 5 or more damage, and a suite of spells designed to change gems en masse to match 3 or 5 of a kind in several places around the board, gaining me extra turns and doing damage to my enemies at the same time. However, I read up on some tips for the game on a couple of boards, and found that I have the gear and spells to make a strong damage build work for my wizard, too. I tried that build out on some of the battles leading up to the end, and it was awesome how powerful it felt compared to what I had been using, but it didn't stop me from hitting a brick wall at Lord Bane. After a while of that build I swapped back to a hybrid of my extra turn-focused build and the all-out damage one, and I came really close to beating him, but lost nonetheless.

Well, at this point the only other achievement I need (besides the one for beating Lord Bane) is related to the crafting system, which I haven't touched. Maybe if I get into that I can forge some bad-ass new gear to take down Bane and kill two birds with one stone.

As for GTA, I've just arrived at the second safehouse, in Bohan.

The Future, Conan?

I haven't played a whole lot that I want to ramble on about this week; just a couple of hours of Puzzle Quest, a little bit of Hexic HD, and a bunch of GTA IV. I don't want to say a lot about the latter, partly because I'm just so sick of hearing about it in the press, and partly because I'm only maybe 15% into the game. Suffice it to say that it's a lot like III through San Andreas, but better--it's a lot of fun.

I thought I'd take this opportunity, then, to take a look into the future, all the way to the year 2000 (and 9). Thinking about the month of May, and the lack of any games I want to pick up releasing therein, I set my eyes to the beyond, and even beyond the beyond (not the shitty PSX RPG), to take stock of what's coming out over the horizon, and what of that I'm interested in.

A quick list:

Metal Gear Solid 4

Etrian Odyssey 2

Ninja Gaiden 2

Too Human

Fallout 3

Halo Wars

Resistance 2

Yakuza 2

MOON (little known DS game)

Mirror's Edge (that trailer looks incredible!)

Persona 4

FF and DQ remakes for the DS

Bionic Commando Re-Armed (the remake of the 8-bit)

Puzzle Quest: Galactrix (...come to Butthead....)

I guess that about covers it. Not all of those are sure buys, but they're definitely on my radar. So many games!

April Pick-ups

1) Ikaruga

2) Ninja Gaiden DS rocks, Monster Hunter is ok, and I picked up Rondo of Swords because the battle system looks really interesting.  Also, a buddy of mine just got a job at Success, the Japanese developer behind it.

3) Last-gen refuses to go quietly into the night!  My RPG pile continues to grow!

4) Current-gen in full effect.  I just started GTA IV; so far, so good.

Other April-ending ends and odds

Quite aside from the MGS series (quite), I've spent a whole lot of time the last couple of weeks playing Puzzle Quest. I must be getting pretty deep into the quest mode by now. My Wizard is level 35, and I have a pretty nice set of broken equipment and broken spells for this broken (but awesome) game. Maybe it's not broken, maybe it's supposed to be ridiculously crazy and extra turn happy. It's amazing when I (or my enemy) can get like 7 extra turns all in a row and set up some insane chain-reaction culminating in 50 or more points of damage to the opposition.

Monster Hunter Freedom--not for me. Aside from just general graphics and interface jankiness (it's a 2004 PSP game, so I can understand this somewhat), the way this game is built just is not what I'm looking for at this point. The game seems to be 100% loot based. Get a mission, go kill some shit or gather some shit, and use the proceeds to upgrade to cooler gear. Rinse, repeat. There's barely any window-dressing of a world or story whatsoever, and the game is even further hamstrung by supporting only ad-hoc multiplayer for the, I don't know, 50% of the game that is designed to be taken on with a partner or team. I can see why this thing is so monstrously popular in Japan, and all at once I can see why it does pretty 'meh' numbers in the States. It makes perfect sense now that I've played the game. It's like an MMO, except not Massively Multiplayer, or Online!

I'd like to say that MH:F would have likely gained more traction with me back when I was like 15, but (aside from what would have been mind-blowing graphics), I kind of doubt the veracity of that statement. So, this is going to get traded in soon. I'm glad I finally got a chance to check the series out, though.

My copy of GTA IV should arrive today!

MGS2 post of bloat and genetic theory of information

I completed Metal Gear Solid 2 last night. It seemed shorter than I recalled, probably due to its extreme linearity, which not necessarily a bad thing. It's also no doubt due to the fact that the Big Shell is made up of small, straightforward modules that consist of simple arrays of narrow corridors and pathways--there is just nowhere to get either lost or sidetracked (other than in the plot :drumroll:).

The boss fights can be a pain in the ass. I have never liked Fatman (what a shitty character design; a roller-blading mad-bomber fat-ass with a glass of wine? Really?) or his pain-in-the-ass encounter. The Harrier fight wasn't bad, and it had cool cinematics featuring Solidus, but it treads the fine line between homage to and rehash (and simulation) of the Hind fight in the original MGS. The Vamp fight is a real pain. Once I had him down to one more shot needed with my Tranq gun when he killed me. At that point I started using the grenade thrower to murder his punk ass, which works pretty well. The toughest fight in the game for me is undoubtedly the squadron of Metal Gear Rays at the end. You have to see that fight as more of an endurance test than anything. Even on normal I breathed a sigh of relief after what must have been my seventh attempt was successful. And then, the battle I had been dreading the most, the sword duel vs. Solidus, turned out to be pretty simple. You just take the fight to him. Get up in his face and keep your guard up, and then when he attacks and you block, you'll be able to retaliate with a 2 or 3 hit combo. The first couple of tries had me dead having barely made a dent in Solidus, but once I figured out this strategy, he went down quick and easy.

As far as the plot goes: well, does anyone really get it all? Give me a moment to make sense of all this...

So, the Patriots are trying to reign in the flow of information over the Internet in order to cull the dross and pass on only what's worthwhile to the next generations of humanity. In order to do this, they needed to collect data from a super soldier such as Solid Snake, and thus set up Raiden's mock Shadow Moses mission, which apparently needs to be carried out in a real terrorist situation, which has just developed at Big Shell, which is actually the development grounds for Arsenal Gear, which is guarded by a unit of 25 Metal Gear Rays, and which Solidus Snake and Dead Cell wish to hijack in order to create a nation free of the Patriots' influence: Outer Heaven. The Plan is to detonate some kind of hydrogen-based nuclear bomb in the atmosphere over Manhattan, cutting it off from the world's power and information grid, giving birth to Outer Heaven, and it's citizens, the Sons of Liberty. Solidus then wants to hunt down and kill the 12 members of the Patriots' highest echelon, an elite cabal that Solidus, George Sears, ex-POTUS, once desired to be a member of, but had his chances of that ever happening cut out from under him when his plan, the Shadow Moses Incident, went tits-up in the first Metal Gear Solid.

Meanwhile, Revolver Ocelot is pulling double agent duty, working for the Patriots alongside Solidus and Dead Cell. His true objective is apparently just to steal one working Metal Gear Ray unit, and possibly to stop Solidus from gaining control of Arsenal Gear and completing the creation of Outer Heaven. The Patriots also have Olga Gurlukovich's child, and hold the boy hostage to force Olga to assist Raiden in his mission (remember, they need the mission data that his nanomachines are collecting). There is also the little matter of Liquid Snake's arm carrying his personality, and it taking over Ocelot's body and opportune times. By the end of the game, it appears as if Liquid is in total control, and his own objective is also to hunt down and kill the Patriots.... whom we learn at the end of the credits are all dead, and have been for around a century. Food for thought.

What I don't get is Raiden not knowing Solidus from their first encounter. Solidus supposedly 'adopted' the boy Raiden in a war-torn African nation, and taught him much about fighting. Not to mention the fact that Solidus used to be the President of the United States, for fuck's sake! How could Raiden live in the modern world and not recognize the man he himself knows and who is also constantly on tv and the front page of newspapers all over the world?

I do know that Raiden is a much cooler character than people give him credit for. At first he comes off as a whiny-but-cocksure virtual-veteran with a needy and naggy girlfriend, but then proceeds to do cool stuff like shooting down fighter jets and scads of advanced Metal Gears and using a katana to fight (and kill!) one of the Snake triplets, a clone of the mighty Big Boss himself. He's also got an incredibly bad-ass background as a ruthless child-soldier killer known as "Jack the Ripper" or "The White Devil."

So, uh, I think I'm ready for MGS4. I dunno though, I might need more skateboarding practice. Zing!

Time Flies

Has it already almost been a week? The big thing over this past weekend was some XBLA stuff, some Rock Band, and gearing up for MGS2. A lot of that time was spent on Puzzle Quest alone. I'm determined to play that game all the way through to the end. I have no clue how far into it I might be, though. It's just too good of a game; that devious combination of puzzle and rpg tropes is the definition of addicting.

I flew a few missions more in Ikaruga, too. I've made it up to around halfway through the 3rd level (on easy with max lives and continues). That game is beautiful in it's simplicity, and it looks great in high-def. Not a bad deal at $10, either.

I found Monster Hunter Freedom for PSP used, and in mint condition, for $20 at EB the other day, so I decided to give it a whirl. My first impressions are "someone please tell me how to play this game." A couple of times now I've gone off on my first quest for the hunter's guild, which from what I can make of the briefing, is just a test to see if you can either survive a trip out into the wilds or if you can actually find this cryptic artifact that I'm assuming actually exists, not having seen any evidence that would lead me to actually believe in it. I've just wandered around so far, attacking random things and wondering where the hell this "paws pass" or whatever it is I'm looking for is. My PSP battery died halfway through my morning commute today, and that didn't help matters.

My first couple of hours with Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance were spent reading the 3 'books' of back story in the "special" menu of the game. It's interesting how those are set up. There is meant to have been a book published by one of the minor characters in the first MGS, detailing the behind-the-scenes happenings in and around the events at Shadow Moses. The first article of interest is a mock book review of said book, the second a mock-noir recounting by a bumbling journalist of his own investigations into the incident and the book (kind of humorous), and the third is the 'book' itself, which reveals a few previously unknown facts about the Patriots, a guy called Richard Ames, and what really happened in those islands north of Alaska's Fox archipelago. Altogether this stage-setting amounts to about 500 'pages' (a paragraph or so each). I try not to dwell on what my reading all of this says about myself.

As far as the game proper, I've made it through the Tanker chapter, and about an hour or so into the Raiden section of the game. I've only played through MGS2 once in the past, so my memories of the story are nebulous at best. I'm thoroughly enjoying it to this point.

Shadow Moses Incident Data Analysis Complete

I just polished off the rest of the original MGS tonight, clocking in a final time of 11:32 and a rank of Iguana (it said I used 120 rations? It must be counting the times I did so and then died).

Those back-to-back Metal Gear Rex fights were giving me fits. This time through the game I was using chaff grenades all over the place, and so when I needed them to avoid Rex's annoying missile attacks, I only had a handful, and it was tough making them stretch long enough to bring the beast down with my Stingers (which I had saved more than enough of).

Then there was the mano-a-mano fight against Liquid... I've always hated that part, but after a few futile attempts, I found a good strategy and was able to knock that bastard out. Not as aggravating as my last couple of times through the game.

And thennnnnnnn.... the jeep escape sequence. I died like 4 times trying that, whereas in the past I can't remember dying at all there. But, in the end, I made it out, with Meryl, since I withstood Ocelot's torture earlier.

I'm still amazed at how well this game holds up. Since this is my first time through since MGS2 came out, I caught a reference by Ocelot to a Colonel Sergei Gurlukovich of the Spetsnaz, who turns up later in Sons of Liberty. I also was able to pinpoint the moment Ocelot showed his hand in betraying Liquid, after Liquid revealed his plan to turn the base into a new Outer Heaven. Yeah, MGS still rocks.

1998 2: 2008

I guess I have a thing for 10-year-old games at the moment. I've been re-playing Metal Gear Solid from the collection I recently picked up. I had only planned to re-play MGS2 as a refresher before 4 comes out in June, but I figured I might as well hop in at MGS1 considering the last two games in the series I played were MGS3 and Portable Ops (and, as anyone reading this no doubt is aware, the series chronology goes: 3>PO>1>2>4).

This is my fourth or fifth time through the game, counting solo and co-op (passing the controller back and forth with a friend) playthroughs. The game holds up amazingly well, especially with the texture smoothing the PS3 can do for it. There's also an option to stretch the image to 16:9, but while that has worked for me in the past with GTA: San Andreas, it makes MGS look really off. Most amazingly, though, is how the actual gameplay holds up. I keep trying to figure out if this is a sign of one amazing game or a whole industry's stagnation.

At first it was a bit jarring not to be able to pull off Metal Gear moves I've become accustomed to, like the somersault, rail-hang, or box-climb (let alone first-person aiming). Before long, though, I was once again used to the relatively simplistic control scheme of the original MGS. Even after all this time, the game feels nearly perfectly executed, including the cut-scenes. The character models are now overly blocky, but none of the impact is lost. Truly an amazing feat if there ever was one. And David Hayter just sounds so good. Also, the hand-drawn character portraits present in the codec calls are hella cool, and they should have stuck with those throughout the series.

I'm just past the torture sequence, at around 6-and-a-half hours in, which is somewhere around half-way if I remember correctly. I know I still have the Hind (D), Sniper Wolf, Vulcan Raven, and the Rex/Liquid fights to go. I'll probably finish the game this week and move on the part 2 shortly.

More contemporaneously, I've picked up Ninja Gaiden DS, and it's awesome! This is hands-down the best gameplay use of the stylus I've seen yet. Admittedly, I've not played Zelda yet, but all indicators point to Ninja Gaiden one-upping it in the control department. Ryu controls smoothly and swiftly outside of battle, and quickly and precisely in battle. Like any good ninja, his sole purpose is to flip out and kill people.

This game was created expressly for the DS, and it really shows. Even in DS-as-book orientation, the game just feels awesome to play (even for a lefty like myself, thanks to the flip option). Stabbing and jabbing with the stylus is like second nature, and jumping maneuvers like the Flying Swallow or Izuna Drop also feel great to pull off by flicking the stylus up to jump, then across or up again to perform the attack. When I think of the feeling of playing this game, there's only one other game that comes to mind with such a smooth sense of fighting and mobility, and that's Symphony of the Night, and that's a hell of a game to draw comparison to.

Briefly, I downloaded the demo of Ikaruga on XBLA, and it's pretty cool (and tough). I also popped in Rock Band for a bit, in perverse observance of Europe's plight with this game. And finally, I hit up Puzzle Quest for a few minutes. They really should have created unique quests in that game for each of the character classes. I'm so far in with my Wizard that it'd be a huge waste of time to start over with another character (but I have anyway, once before), but I'd like to try out other classes, such as the 4 new ones they are adding in the ex-pac just over the horizon.

Giving up on a couple.

Meh, I've had enough GTA: San Andreas and Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles.

I've put in a lot of time and effort with both, and enjoyed them, but I don't think I'm ever going to see them through to the end.

I finally beat Death in Rondo of Blood last time I played, woot! The next level is a boss gauntlet... Oh well, as a kid I never beat Castlevania or Castlevania III, both of which I really loved, so why should Rondo be any different? These old school Castlevanias are just hard as hell. The more forgiving playability (you might say easiness) of Symphony of the Night is a big part of why it's lodged solidly in my top three games of all time.

As for San Andreas, well, I've really just had enough GTA altogether. I was pretty much done after Vice City, and even though I'm sitting at around 75% of the way through the story of San Andreas, I haven't been playing it or having fun with it the way I did with the first two entries in this incarnation of the series. The days of GTA III and Vice City were the halcyon days of collegiate life in the dorm. My roommate and I would trade the controller back and forth over these two games and just have a blast for hours at a time. When I play San Andreas now, I'm solo, and it's just not that involving. I'd rather just cut to the chase, and to play a GTA game that way just isn't right, so I'm going to just walk away.

Lord knows I've got other stuff I could be playing.

I am getting GTA IV, but if I hadn't already had it on order for the awesome bargain price of $42 since a year or more ago, I might have held off for a while. I just hope the jump up to "IV" brings some significant differences to the formula. The story and presentation looks pretty good this time around, at least.

FFVII Crisis Core Solved!

I finished the main quest and story tonight, putting in a total of about 20 hours. I only did around 20% of the missions, but easily spent 4 hours of that 20 on them.

This game is a unique mix of things that are done really well, and things that are done really poorly. The good ultimately outweighs the bad, in my opinion, leaving the score at around 60/40.

The good: amazing production values, awesome soundtrack, fun and addictive battle system, shittons of game content in the mission system, and the cool materia fusion system.

The suck: long-ass, un-skippable cut-scenes (often before boss battles), unintelligible faux-profound ramblings from the character Genesis, encounter triggers and encounter frequency, bland and empty environments, the DMW system constantly interrupting your battle flow for non-interactive slot machine randomness, long-ass, unskippable limit break animations.

There are also issues with over-leveling as a by-product of doing the side missions. As I mentioned, at the end of the game I had only done around 20% of them, and I was able to beat the ever-loving shit out of all the final bosses without breaking a sweat. This was on normal. I'm told hard mode is just obnoxious because all it does is up enemy HP by insane amounts without really changing enemy tactics at all.

As for the plot, and it's connections to FFVII proper, well, that's more of a subjective thing. There's a good 9 or 10 years between me and familiarity with FFVII, but for the most part it didn't matter. Zack's story is pretty compelling in it's own right, and even without being able to nail down every single reference or thing corresponding to something else in FFVII, I got a sense of what Cloud's motivation should be going into that game (even if he's an amnesiac or whatever for a while, there). Zack is also a really likable character, especially considering he's a Final Fantasy protagonist post-FFVI.

While the game has some issues, it's a lot of fun, and it's definitely one of the very top echelon of PSP titles, leaving most portable games far, far behind in the dust. So, a flawed gem, but a shiny and valuable one nonetheless.

March pick-up post!

Top to bottom:

1)A second DS for my wife, a kanji study aid from Japan, and a couple of new DS titles

2)Non-MGS Playstation Family titles.  CC: FFVII is the "limited" Best Buy edition.

3)The Metal Gear Solid Essential Collection. The cover art is universally an improvment over the original versions.  At the bottom is the inside cover art for the MGS Digital Graphic Novel.

4)To the right is the Metal Gear Saga Vol. 2 disc I got from Game Crazy when I reserved MGS4.

5)StarCraft, and a bluetooth mighty mouse to play it with.

I suck at StarCraft

It took me an hour and a half the other night to beat one of the missions of the Terran campaign. I'm only on the 6th or 7th one, but the game is still pretty tough. I'm starting to learn the hotkeys for stuff, and that's helping some, but I am still a total noob.

I'm on this mission now where I have to send some guys to rescue some other guys who are surrounded by a freakin' ton of Zerg. I can't seem to win anytime I throw my guys at the Zerg encampments along the way to where I need to go. I don't think I'm taking enough guys or something. I'll typically send 8 or so marines and/or firebats along with 2 to 4 each of the vultures and wraiths. Looks like I need to amass a larger force before sending them out to kill a bunch of Zergs and Zerg buildings.

I popped in Oblivion the other night, for the first time in forever. I've decided to try and at least get through the main quest of the game, and then maybe later go and do all the guilds and factions and stuff. I still can't see myself burning through enough of the game to necessitate buying Shivering Isles, the expansion pack. During this session, I did a couple of legs of the main campaign, and picked up a couple more pieces of the Daedric armor set, which I think is best in the game, though I could be mistaken. I'm beginning to agree with what seems to be the popular consensus--that this game is broken. Specifically, the bit about monsters leveling up just as you do. I saw a sage bit of advice online, though, which for the most part fixes the problems this causes: set the difficulty slider all the way down.

Also, I've been playing a lot more of Crisis Core: FFVII at home and on my commute. Good game, though in places I've thought the encounter rate was too high. I'm just at the part where Zack has met Cloud for the first time. The narrative so far is better than I'd thought it would be, but that's not really saying a lot. My favorite character is probably Angeal, followed by Zack himself, and then Sephiroth, who seems surprisingly more normal and level-headed here than he becomes in FFVII proper.

Going Mobile

I've been stuck to my portables lately. Partly it is because I've been using public transport some days, partly because console & TV gaming requires me to sit up and pay attention (either my couch is too far away, or I need a bigger TV), and partly just because I got some wicked awesome games for DS and PSP.

I finally got my DS to cooperate with my wireless setup's security settings, so I was able to try out the rescue features for Shiren the Wanderer. I ventured down to the 8th floor to rescue one guy, and after the rescue was complete I found I was able to keep all of the items I'd found during the run. None of the EXP, but it's still a cool incentive nonetheless. Later, after one of my own failed attempts at the main dungeon, I called for a rescue from the 10th floor. When I checked back the next day, some kind wanderer had rez'd me, and I was able to continue from that spot with items and EXP intact. I made it another couple of floors in before getting owned again. So far the furthest I've made it is to the third town, just before the 15th floor. This game is tough, but enjoyable.

I went to Best Buy the other day looking for Rondo of Swords, another DS game, an SRPG with an interesting battle mechanic where you draw your path of movement through all the enemies you want to attack on your turn. It's an Atlus game, so the idea is to buy it first, decide whether you want it later. Unfortunately, BB didn't have it, so I'm still looking.

They did have Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, though. While I hadn't been exactly looking forward to it (the internet holds me in a state of perpetual FFVII fatigue, even not having played the game since like 1999), I had heard good things, and it seemed like it might be a good idea to pick it up in the limited edition packaging if at all (for resale value later if it turned out to suck).

I can happily say that it does not suck. Actually, it seems pretty awesome, so far. The production values are really something, despite the game suffering from the bland, empty 3D environment syndrome that a lot of PSP (and DreamCast before it) games seem to. The voice acting is surprisingly good, and the music is awesome. I love the J-metal butt rock you get during the missions and fight sequences.

The narrative I've yet to uncover much of (not expecting much, to be honest), but the battle system is really cool. It's the latest in a stream of SE's action/turn-based hybrid battle systems (including Vagrant Story, FFXI, FFXII, and others), and it blends the two styles so well that it feels like you're dodging and attacking in real time even when there is a slight animation or turn delay.

I like the side missions you get to do, also. There are tons of them, and they are accessible from any save point, so at just about any time you can hop from the main linear quest to somewhere completely different for a short action fix. So far they're all combat-focused, and take like 5 minutes max to complete, so they're perfect for a quick diversion and to pick up some loot. I've only done a few of these, but I already have 2 pretty sweet items earned from doing them.

So many awesome games to play, so little time.