Apparently I've delved into the supernerdy world of customizing my stuff. I spent the last week or so working on a little art project, and it really looks better than I would have expected from me - though clearly not professional.
I promise I'll have something worth posting very soon, I've picked up a few games and will be reviewing them extensively. But until then, enjoy?
Also, thanks to This crazy guy I'm back in the internet world, which also helps with the eventual posting.
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You ride that broom-gun, you dirty dirty girl.
You’re introduced to the game with a brief history of the end of the world, starting in approximately 2009, and bringing you up to date in the current year of 2013 after the destruction has well set in. Laid out are general apocalypse scenarios; weather, disease, famine, and finally the undead taking over.
You are Alicia-no-last-name, a witch dressed as a hooker (one of 6 whorish costumes available for free download), wielding a very large gun in the general shape of a broom. The enemy is a legion of undead demon things in various shapes, sizes, and species, with primary soldiers being machinegun toting Geists, who look like crack addicts with inside-out-skin.
The game has a very weak story, not giving you any information about your character, or why she has a male voice poking around in her head giving random advice or snide commentary periodically. The vague storyline leaves you with a sense of “Why am I doing this? Besides that these undead things aren’t very nice, of course.” Eventually you’re given some insight on a few points, but by then I really didn’t care.
Game play is something like a pseudo-survival horror, 3rd person shooter a-la-Gears of War. You’ll spend a lot of time hiding behind debris and anything else you can find – however, with the glitchiest backgrounds I’ve seen since Land of the Dead, occasionally an object you see and hide behind is penetrable or secretly non-existent, and Alicia will die for absolutely no reason whatsoever.
As for the glitches in the levels, walking in a straight line is basically impossible. Curbs are very real obstacles when moving from point A to point B in the city, which is more than frustrating with the shoot from the hip targeting system. Invisible rocks will barrage your path at regular intervals out in the open, causing the same issues while aiming at anything.
Entirely too many enemies get one-hit-kills. For instance, the telepath enemies (called Walnut heads for those who care) will throw cars - or sometimes they don’t really throw the cars, but after you kill them, they aren’t holding the car in the air anymore and it lands on your head. Oops, back to the checkpoint for you. Snipers never miss, and the “ancient wall” which is supposed to protect you from them sometimes has holes in it where bullets fit nicely through. Other times it’s just the big fuckers that decide to trample you, even while hiding in a narrow alley that this behemoth shouldn’t fit in.
The cinematic sequences were very poorly done. You can sacrifice some of your health and magic to revive fallen allies, however if a geist rounds the corner while you’re doing this, you can not move, or fire to defend yourself, and you will probably die while watching this 15 second cinematic. Summoning weather has the same effect - you can summon lightening or tornadoes, but if an enemy is firing anywhere near you, or something sneaks up behind you, you will probably die while watching this 25 second cinematic. (Also, the quote “I will give you a death you’ve never felt before!” makes me laugh, every time.)
Speaking of allies, the AI system in this game is especially retarded. Most of the time allies will charge enemies then stand there, and then…stand there. Other times they’ll run in the wrong direction and not even provide additional targets for the baddies. Or, they’ll shout “Over here!” and be standing or running facing the WRONG direction.
I’ll end this rant with the inconsistent difficulty. Some areas are ridiculously easy, you could say a “walk in the park” really, with frequent checkpoints just incase a squirrel up and kicks your ass.* Other times you will have a long road with falling debris or rogue cars rolling around (glitch) 3 tanks, 2 giants, and 4 dozen geists in the way before you hit a check point.
I suppose this game did have some good points, I just can’t exactly remember what they are right now. I don’t recommend this game to anybody, but for $14 I did play and beat it, with my only real regret being the shelf space its taking up now.
*there are no actual squirrels in this game, sorry to give up your hopes.
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To begin with, I was not at all impressed with Blue Dragon. It took a lot of digging, patience, and forgetting that I generally dislike JRPG’s to be able to sit down and enjoy this. Now that I have moved past the bad, I can enjoy Blue Dragon with the rest of the fans.
I suppose I should get the bad out of the way, and then I can rave about how wonderful the rest is.
Part 1, the Bad.
The first 20-40 minutes of the game is very slow moving, and it doesn’t help that the cut scenes are several minutes long with very little character control in between. The voice acting in English is the worst I’ve heard since Two Worlds, but luckily the Japanese is a tolerable option. It’s always amazed me how people can screw up their own language, but alas, it happened…again.
To my disappointment, the first fiend you run into is called a “Poo snake” and really, they don’t get more creative or interesting than that for about 2 hours into the game.
To begin with, I felt the characters didn’t fit the environment – there is steam punk, with a hint of Final Fantasy flavor about the game, and the brightly colored Dragon Ball Z style didn’t seem to fit in with the mix.
The story in this game is a pretty generic rendition of any other anime/JRPG story I can think of, but running into other interesting characters (including talking Mural people, a species of small dancing things, and a tree that’s lost its soul) makes it so the story isn’t the important part, the experience is center stage on this one.
I think the only thing I still hate, and probably always will, is the boss battle music. I disliked “Otherworld” from Final Fantasy X - adding words to music that will be looped for as long as the battle takes is obnoxious, but this one is especially bad – and unfortunately relatively frequent. I’m hoping on the other discs the boss music changes, but I somehow doubt it.
Part two, the Good.
After about 3 hours the game improved vastly. And 10 hours later I can say I definitely want to stick with this game to the end. There are a number of reasons for that, so here goes.
The random battles are much easier to deal with than most Final Fantasy styled games, no swirling television screens, no sudden music change, and you can SEE what you’re about to fight and generally decide if you want to.
The leveling system is one of the better I’ve ever seen, I don’t feel like it’s so much a chore, as a way to combine monster fights and see what happens, or clear the way to a chest full of goodies.
One original concept added to this game was that of multiple targets when attacking, and on occasion, two different fiends targeted at once will battle each other and it is always pretty amusing, so trying to bring foes together to fight in a row is almost always worth it.
I was also really impressed with the battle system itself in this game. They didn’t bother trying to make the characters themselves excellent fighters or surly badasses – they’re kids. So unlike the final fantasy “guardian Forces” that had to be summoned, they just let the “shadows” do all their fighting or spellcasting and the kids just do the questing and character interaction.
You can also interact with your environment to a larger extent than most JRPG’s. You can search random objects in the environment; some things you search will have status effects or damage associated with them as well as objects or gold. I find this to be a nice change of pace from the standard JRPG environments. I imagine this feature was implemented because monsters in this game don’t store weapons, or potions on their person, so you have to make an effort to find vital objects on your own.
I don’t know that I have anything witty to add to wrap this up, I haven’t written in a while, and this certainly wasn’t my favorite blog, but there you go, I made an effort – so enjoy, or don’t.
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I knew we should have hit that last save point.
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Upon recently reviewing exactly how many hours I've plugged into Dead Rising (its sad really, you probably don't want to know) I was looking at the entire mall scenario and where it has flaws.
In 1978, George A. Romero released Dawn of the Dead, which as far as I know, was the first zombie infestation to be focused around a mall. You have to admit, malls have changed pretty drastically from the 1970's to today. For instance, there really were gun stores attached to malls, and specialty hardware was easy to find. Now we rely on Super Target to supply us with hammers, and needless to say, the quality is somewhat lessened.
There are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration when choosing a safe place to fortify and claim for your own – and as much as I worship the Zombie Survival Guide (by max brooks, go buy it) Individuality is a prime concern when choosing your spot.
For instance;
-Do you like to be alone, or crave people time?
-Would you rather shoot, stab, or bludgeon the undead?
-How populated of an area are you in, and how far do you think you could get before the shit really went down?
-How do you believe the dead hunt (hearing, sight, smell – they're dead, its a valid question) and how do you plan to counter that?
-Do you have a green thumb (meaning grow your own food,) or manage to kill cactus?
-What about family?
-Would you hide out first, then raid cities for what you need, or grab and go?
There are so many different ways to go about finding your ideal fortress, and a lot of things to take into consideration. Do you hide out in a mall? A grocery store? Fortify a house? Or start now, take the 'crazy' ridicule, and build a bunker in your back yard?
I look at all these things, and I can honestly say I do not have a foolproof plan to get me through an undead infestation, though I have a pretty good idea.
But what I want to know, is what everyone else plans on doing. Where would you hide? Who would you take with you? What weapon would you bring? Clothing and other supplies?
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The idea of backward-compatibility with video games is fantastic--in theory. When in reality you pick up a game you remember loving absolutely to death, and go "wow, that was really blah." Then on the other hand, you get a feeling of nostalgia and remember the good old days--it's a double edged sword.
Somewhat recently, I picked up Off World Interceptor Extreme (from back when adding "extreme" to the end of a game title actually made it seem better) which I had played when I was about 9-10 years old at the neighbors house on the old brick Playstation. Now, after looking for this game for ages, I played it, and it got that blah feeling along with the fantastic feeling of accomplishment.
Now to the point. Game force went mostly out of business about 5-10 years ago, leaving only a few locations left in major cities. Game Force was always notorious for having very obscure things, for instance, I saw a Super Nintendo controller still in the box, so to nostalgic gamers this place has become a hard to find friend.
However, to female gamers, not so much.
My story begins with the guy behind the counter, who was under the impression that because I was a girl, I didn't know what I was doing. First I wandered around the store, looking at game cube, xbox, play station 1, and dream cast stuff--and he stops me and says "You do know these are all different systems, right?"
I just stared at him.
Then I found my game, Off World—and as I'm getting ready to pay he goes "You know this isn't Odd World right, no cute little green guys?" at which point my head goes through a million nasty, rude comebacks, but my mouth just says "excuse me?" in a really frustrated voice. Of course, after a few minutes I can't resist, and I proceed to explain to him exactly how rude it is to assume I have no idea what I'm doing simply because I'm in a skirt. (Also, the manager I complained to looked like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite.)
I got the game half-price.
Anyone can complain about gamestop, or any other game store for that matter – but it really comes down to the employees, and what level of ignorance the company is prepared to tolerate.
Gamestop has a wonderful feedback system on their receipts – so have a voice, complain about bad service, and there is usually actually something done about it. Sexual harassment is definitely up there on the “will crack skulls” list, but there are any other number of reasons a store can be audited by the district manager (you just have to phrase things well.) I've seen it happen.
Also, I'm still O.K. with Cocks. Seriously.
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When the Wii was first announced as being a revolutionary arcade style gaming system, with a “wii-mote” that resembled a standard television remote, and a nun chuck for movement, a lot of us were scratching our heads as to where Nintendo might be trying to take us, and where the ball gag came from.
In the year+ since release, very few games have sparked any interest with me as far as this poor neglected system goes, Super Smash Bros Brawl being one of the few I have followed through its many changed release dates. (Insert shameless Mario Galaxy mention, so I don’t get berated for not recognizing the Wii game of the year.)
There was one game, though, that I thought could change the tide. A game that I had only seen a single article on, and very little following (probably because most of the magazines are geared toward a younger demographic, and Mario is much safer) was the Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles.
Basically, you start as Rebecca Chambers, or Billy Coen on the train from Resident Evil: Zero, and work your way through the series’ storyline, filling in plot holes, picking up herbs, and shooting zombies in the face – I couldn’t ask for much more than that. You’re able to equip different guns as you go, and always have the trusty survival knife as backup.
One negative part I was a bit disappointed of, they’ve managed to leave out Resident Evil 2 and 4 for unnamed reasons. No Leon for us this time…but learning what Wesker was doing during the time he was off screen is almost worth it. Also, Nemesis.
Unfortunately you may have to spend a bit more money on this one; the gun attachment makes this game much more enjoyable, is somewhat necessary, and improves your aim. The hipshot doesn’t even really work with Shotguns, let alone handguns. The official Nintendo version of the gun attachment sucks – so you may have to do some digging, or just buy this one to complete your gaming experience (Hey, its still cheaper than a light gun.)
For the record, I did play Resident Evil: Dead Aim, and I can honestly tell you Umbrella Chronicles is not even in the same ballpark. It is infinitely better, with recognizable storyline, longer gameplay, and better gun mechanics.
Now I can go back to holding my breath for Smash Bros Brawl.
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First, what a bitch, we should totally kick her ass.
Then, after all the crap with Xbox live breaking down for a month, the free download is available now - funny how microsoft didn't announce anything. Its Undertow in the arcade list. I'm sure people have already found this info and shared it, but as I don't live online, I may have missed it, so I re-share.
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I was organizing game guides at work today and noticed something strange. While some guides are good for art, some for collecting (cards, pokemon, etc), some are good for those anal people that need to track down every last item in a game, but can anyone tell me why Guitar Hero, or Rock Band, or DDR could ever need a guide?
Guitar Hero, DDR, and Rock Band have songs. Sure some are locked, but are you really curious enough to buy a $10-$20 game guide to find out what song comes next?
I actually perused the Rock Band guide, and every page had; Name of song, the total points the creators achieved on various difficulties for said song, and variations in the difficulties (easy has fewer notes than hard, well duh) for the same song, that’s just about it.
If we’re really getting this crazy, they should publish one for the XBLA, one guide per game, its flawless./sarcasm
Also, anyone participating in the contest, keep an eye out, Spykron and I will be posting winners as soon as photos and videos are prepped for posting.
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