Virtual Adept

Is RRODed a word? For those not in the know, RROD = Red Ring of Death, which is what happens when your Xbox 360 refuses to work properly and instead displays 3 blinking red lights. Fortunately there is a three year free replacement policy for this condition and I have registered online at Xbox.com to get a box sent to me which I will place my 360 in and ship off to wherever they fix these things and hopefully in the next few weeks I will get my 360 back (or preferably a newer one with the HDMI connector) and then be back in gaming biz. But for now I will have to console myself with the great Playstation 3 and the overrated Wii. And I was just getting into Lost Odyssey too.

Figured I haven’t written about gaming in a while so I would post up what’s going on.

I already wrote about my new custom firmware PSP which still rocks. I have been playing the old Sega Genesis game Shadowrun on it quite a bit and love how well the emulation works both in terms of interface and speed. Being able to use save-states to save / load anytime makes things much nicer for this otherwise potentially frustrating game (insta-kills are not too uncommon in the early game so being able to save often is a huge plus).
I figured out what was going on with my Wii - I had a messed up wii-mote. It sort of works but not 100%. But I guess I’ll keep it for use in multi-player tho I might want to leave it for the 3rd or 4th stick of last resort type thing. Played quite a bit of Red Steel with the new remote and it is pretty fun. I am stuck now in a puzzle where I can’t figure out how to get out of a room so I may need to look at a walkthru soon. Still need to finish Zelda and now Metroid Prime 3 is out so that’s another potential time-waster on the near horizon for me (it’s in my GF que). Wii Sports is awesome in multiplayer. But mostly my Wii has just kind of gathered dust, it’s my least used console of my this-gen ones.

The PS3 is actually quite fantastic. Mainly because the BD player rocks. We’ve been renting BD (Blu-Ray Disc) movies from Netflix lately. The quality of the picture is amazing. Just need to update my sound system so I can get that True-HD surround sound stuff. But anyway it looks great. And Resistance is pretty fun, I went ahead and did “buy-it” on GFly for that. I also picked up Untold Legends for it and downloaded Tekken 5 for it. I hope to rent Warhawks next I think. The Darkness looks pretty sweet on PS3 also, maybe better than the Xbox 360 version, but I am so used to the 360’s controller I may keep all my FPS games on that platform (except the PS3 exclusives like Resistance). It’s kind of sad the most of the better games for PS3 seem to be multi-platform and most of the great exclusives promised at E3 2005 have still not seen the light of day.

As for Xbox 360, I have been playing the crap out of it lately, with Bioshock, probably the best single-player FPS ever made, or at least as good as Half-Life 2 which was my previous favorite FPS. The graphics and sound is amazing in Bioshock and the story and setting are very cool. Gameplay has a lot of different options for letting you choose how to play also. Overall Bioshock is a great spiritual successor to the greatness that was System Shock.

Another great 360 game I’ve been spending time with is Blue Dragon, which is the long anticipated Japanese style RPG by the team at Mistwalker which worked on a lot of the Final Fantasy games. The game does really nothing new whatsoever, but it captures the classic JRPG style so well and is done with such amazing visuals and sound that it is a must play for long-time fans of the genre.

Spent a little time PC gaming but not much, mainly just keeping my WoW characters from losing stuff from their inboxes and I did play a few hours of Advent Rising which was actually better than I figured it would have been but still obviously not a great game. I guess it isn’t a complete waste of time but with so many A+ titles to play I doubt I will finish it. My PC is too long in the tooth for new FPS titles, as Bioshock’s demo has proven to me. I doubt it will be able to handle Crysis either. So I figure I can either just stick to console gaming for a while or upgrade, and most likely the first choice, considering how few PC exclusives are out and fewer still worth bothering about. As long as it will still run Hellgate London I probably won’t bother with an upgrade.

We need some rain. Been dry for a couple of weeks, and hot as hell. Our AC is barely keeping the house temp in the high 70’s. Ugh. It rained a little last night so maybe my yard will be okay for a few more days.

I recently acquired a new Playstation Portable with custom firmware. This new firmware allows me to run emulators on the PSP. So far, I have emulators installed for NES, SNES, Genesis,  TurboGrafix16, and Game Boy Advance. Most of the games run very well on it that I’ve tried. There’s not really anything cooler than running Super Mario World on a Sony handheld, is there?

So far I’ve just been dicking around with this, and have not spent a lot of time on any game, but it’s fun to go back and look at the old school from time to time. I may try to go back and finish Chrono Trigger on it, which I got around 2/3 done on SNES back in 98 or 99 or so (still have my cart but not sure I want to hook up the SNES ;p).

Still having a lot of fun in World of Warcraft. My main on the new horde server (Thunderhorn) is a troll priest (43) named Rez. Last night our server was down for maintenance so I played with PS3 instead.

On PS3 I was playing around with the demo for The Darkness. Seems like a pretty innovative first person shooter. I really dug it, may have to snag this game but I probably should try the demo on 360 too to see which platform I like it better on.

My Wii isn’t working right but I haven’t had a chance to mess with it to see if it’s something I’m doing wrong or if it’s broken. Either way I’m not happy about it.

I forgot to send out a note to the blog last week letting readers know I was going on vacation. Just got back from a cruise to Jamaica, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel. Had a fun time, didn’t do much gaming apart from Star Wars Legos and Burnout Legends on the PSP. I should be able to resume daily blog posting tonight or tomorrow. Later!

Had an opportunity to play World of Warcraft again for the first time in a long time. I played one of Lyndal’s characters while we tried out Xfire and Teamspeak with WoW with mixed results. Teamspeak worked well, Xfire not so well. It looks like I may decide to just did resubscribe to WoW. WoW looked great on my new computer, which I didn’t have when I quit WoW some 16 months ago. It really brought back memories. I even remembered the quests, heh. I guess it really impacted me in a major way, it’s a powerful game that can do that. Looking forward to Burning Crusade!

I have characters on Thunderhorn and Argent Dawn. Thunderhorn I’m horde and AD I’m alliance.

Zonk on Slashdot writes:

Via GameSetWatch, an article at The New Gamer talking about comfort games. These reliable, fun titles are the old favorites you consistently look to for amusement and solace after a bad gaming session, a bad day, a bad week. From the article, with the author’s comfort games: “Mega Man 2 - This Capcom classic has been with me since I was a kid, and I know it like the back of my hand. I’m sure that, if blindfolded, I’d somehow intuitively be able to maneuver through the levels, but I’d much rather be able to view it in all of its 8-bit goodness and remind myself of the good times.” My current top five would have to be Super Mario World, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, God of War, and Civilization IV. What are yours?

This made me really think about the kind of game that stays on my harddrive forever or the kind of game I’ll keep buying again and again if it comes out on new formats. I think Zonk kind of missed the point, considering almost all of his list were games released within the last few years. I hardly see how those games could be considered “comfort games” since they haven’t been around long enough. I would have to say that this kind of game is pretty rare for me, I typically do not have time to go back and replay older games I’ve already beaten before. But there are a few.

5. Empire Deluxe for Windows - the classic pure strategy war game. You have a very abstract view of the battle, with little icons representing tank divisions, infantry divisions, fighter squadrons, etc. Part of the fun is doing random maps and exploring it. Before this Windows version came out I played the old text version for DOS that was a port of the original Unix version. Your units were letters of the alphabet.

4. Doom - one of the first FPS games, and probably the most influential of them all, Doom was a great game with a killer soundtrack and cool enemies. It’s still fun today, I just played some of it again the other night on Xbox Live Arcade. I think my favorite version of this, though, was the ZDoom that added jumping and a few other nice features. Any game that gets remade as much as this you know is good.

3. Master of Orion II - While some may think me a heretic for prefering the second iteration of this classic turn-based space-themed strategy game, this is the one I was raised on and I just love it. I love designing new ships, I love the turn-based tactical space battles, and I love the overall strategic map and messing with economies and learning new technology and all that stuff. I think this game has never been off my hard drive for more than a few months since it came out.

2. Planescape: Torment. This is the best story driven RPG I’ve ever played. An amazing story and the game changes depending on how you play it which keeps the game fresh. I have beat this game three times. There is just something about the setting that draws me in, it is a very unique and haunting place. Just writing this post makes me want to replay the game again.

1. Diablo II + Lord of Destruction - I probably have sunk literally several thousand hours into this amazing time waster. If I had spent all of the time I played D2LOD doing something productive, I’d probably be a millionaire by now. This action/RPG with roguelike elements is as addictive as crack. The whole point is to level up your character and most importantly find really cool phat lewt to equip him or her with. The graphics and art were good at the time but very dated now but that doesn’t matter. It’s still a compelling experience. This game is far better online when playing on the closed realms on Battle.Net.

I’ll also list some also-rans that didn’t quite make the cut but still get re-loaded on my hard drive or have been there for a very long time:

Neverwinter Nights - This has never been uninstalled, still play it, mostly user mods and things. Fantastic game with tremendous replay value. It didn’t make the Top 5 because I never did beat the original story.

Might & Magic IV/V “World of Xeen” - is almost always on my hard drive, I love replaying this gem of an old school party based RPG.

Half-Life - I still play this from time to time. I’ve still never seen the ending, I always quit after about 20 hours into it. Still, the part of the game that I do like I really like and it’s a lot of fun. Someday maybe I’ll even beat it.

Unreal Tournament series - Have had a version of this always installed since the original UT. Right now I have UT2004 on there, and it’s always fun for a quick bot-game if I feel like winning, or jumping online to get my ass kicked if I want a challenge. One of the perfect “I have just 15 minutes” kind of games.

Freecell - I play this game all the time, when I’m waiting for something on my PC and the PC is too taxed to load up a more eye-candy-friendly type game. Really fun solitaire game that you can actually win most of the time if you’re clever.

So enough about me. What are your top 5 comfort games? Tell me in comments!

 

Had a really good time playing Donkey Konga and Guitar Hero multiplayer with Jaime and Rosa last night. Kim did an awesome job with dinner, so it was a really great time for all I think. Jaime proved to be the master of Guitar Hero, beating me like 5 out of 6 tries. I did slightly better at Donkey Konga but considering they had that game it was no surprise that they beat us out on that one. I was surprised that my GH skills were so lacking. I must practice for next time. I think Red Octane needs to send me a comission, apparently Jaime went and bought Guitar Hero on the way home. Playing console games multiplayer with people sitting on the same couch is definitely the best part of console gaming.

I have a tremendous backlog of games to play now. It’s just not even funny. And the sad part is the Holiday rush is coming soon and there are at least two dozen games I must have now that I have to buy. Realistically there is no way I will get to all of them, but I am obsessive about it and will buy them all anyway. Lately I only play a not too great percentage of the games I end up buying.

If I had to break it down into percentages, I would say I probably end up opening and at least trying for an hour or so about 60% of my games I buy. I know that sounds rediculous but I buy a lot of bargain bin PC games that I think I want to look at but never get around to so that brings my percentage down quite a bit. I probably only actually play maybe 20%, as in, really get down to spending quality time with a game. This means I spent at least 5 or 6 hours on it and at least got into the main gameplay and not just the opening acts or whatever. And finally, I might finish maybe 2% of the games I buy. Finishing a game demands a lot of time and persistance on my part, and usually before I can find the time to do that some other game has caught my fancy and I drop my last obsession without a thought.

I know those percentages are aweful and many of you are thinking “what a waste!” but that’s about accurate. I really have more money for games than time to play them so it ends up this way. I could probably save a lot of money if I just made a commitment to at least spend 10 hours with every game I buy before I buy the next one. But I’m not sure I can do that. I guess if my financial situation greatly changed I could do something like that. So I end up being more of a game collector than a game player in some ways. I buy some games just because I own another game in the series even if I have no intention of playing it. It’s crazy.

Part of the reason I am like this is because I hate it when a game I wanted to play becomes “rare” so that I then have to spend a lot of money to get a copy of it. That means I buy a lot of games out of fear that I either won’t find a copy later or will have to spend too much on it. I have had this happen to me several times so it’s not like it never happens. I paid through the nose for Valkyrie Profile and others.

I usually tend to wait for sales and bargains. I rarely spend more than $25 for a game, except for the RPG genre which I probably average out around $35 for. RPGs tend to hold their value longer anyway, and I tend to buy more of them when they first come out, because it’s my favorite genre. I also tend to spend more for portable games for some reason. I think it’s because portable games tend to disappear faster and become harder to find, so I fear not getting “my copy” and end up buying them while they are still around and before they ever get cheaper (if that even happens). Sometimes it just depends on the game, of course, but I have had a few cases where I had to spend extra for a rare portable title because I waited too long and it went out of stock.

So am I the only one like this? What are your percentages of games opened, played, and finished?

I just got a PSP so I am kind of in love with it, and I’ve been giving my previous love, the NDS, the cold shoulder, except for the occasional short session with Brain Age. I have about 80 minutes of bus ride every day, so that is one place I usually play portables, and I sometime whip it out at lunch for a quickie, if I’m not feeling too insecure that day about showing my hardware in public.

I also have taken to spending about an hour each evening right before going to sleep playing my PSP or NDS after the wife goes to sleep. It’s great to play them in the dark, and it usually helps me wind down (picking the right game here is important).

Other than that sometimes I’ll play a game if it’s not too intense while watching TV shows. I did this with Final Fantasy I & II on the GBA SP while watching Batman reruns and Teen Titans on the DVR. It takes the kind of game that is repetitive enough that you can spend almost all of you concentration on the show and not have to spend much on the game and turn-based games are pretty much a must here. Playing through the commercials at least.

So when do you play your portable gaming devices?

We went on a little vacation to Salado, Texas, which is why I didn’t update for the last few days. The trip was pretty fun. I got to play my PSP quite a bit. Got even further in Burnout Legends, which is awesome and I posted a review of that already.

I also played quite a bit of Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion. This game is completely awesome, I can’t begin to say how cool it is. It takes some time commitment to get into it, because the game doesn’t really even get started until after almost an hour of cutscenes and minimal interactive scenes. But the characters are alive, and much deeper than in most RPGs, and the story is realistic and not crazy like some RPGs get. At least, so far, that is. I am about 5 hours in and am really enjoying it. Combat system is turn-based, and you have a lot of cool options for combat.

 Finally, last night I spent a couple of hours goofing off in Saint’s Row. That game is great too, it’s a sandbox with tons of fun stuff to do. I also never thought I’d prefer the console controller to the PC for GTA style games but Saint’s Row is a dream to control the vehicles. On foot part could be a bit better but it’s still very doable.

 

Last week or two since finishing Final Fantasy, I have been in “game browser” mode, as usual, playing various games and trying to find my next big addiction. I think I may have found it… and it’s not at all what I would have expected.

Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time (Nintendo DS) - this is an RPG mixed with a platformer. It’s basically a sequel to the GBA game Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which I haven’t played. I am trying to aquire a copy of Superstar Saga, because I think playing it first might help me. Although, the difficulty in Partners in Time ramps up pretty gradually, really. But I still kind of want to play Superstar Saga first, since Partners is sort of like Superstar but on steriods, and I’m worried that Superstar won’t be as fun after finishing Partners. I’m only level 7 or 8 or so in the game so still early. It is definitely a fun game, for sure. Tentatively I’d give it an A.

DUO (PC) - this is a free little shooter by Binary Zoo that I’ve been spending a few hours on so far. It’s highly addictive and very innovative. Kind of hard to describe. It will run on even older PCs. Go ahead, download it, you’ll like it! Definitely a B+ and for free you can’t beat that.

RPG Maker 3 (PS2) - this is a toolbox game. It comes with a sample adventure, but the main purpose of the sample is to show off the editor. The game lets you design your own 3D RPG game. The look and feel of it reminds me somewhat of Grandia 2 or something similar. The combat, however, is not as good as Grandia series, it’s just a simple turn-based system it seems. I’m kind of bummed that they don’t really include any easy way to share your adventures with others, so what’s the point? I know you can supposedly somehow get the adventures off and upload them to a web site, because there is a web site for it for sharing the adventures. But it’s not intuitive. Slow loading times when transfering between areas of the game and going in and out of combat was also a turn-off to it for me. This was a rental, not sure if I’ll pick it up or not, might. The thing is, it doesn’t seem to have a very thriving community, and any editor game has to have a community otherwise you got no audience for your work. I’d be better off waiting for Neverwinter Nights 2, or even just writing a module for the original Neverwinter Nights, which has a thriving community. So far I’d give RPG Maker 3 a C or so, and that’s only if you are interested in the editor.

80 Days (PC) - this is a review game, can’t say much on it except it’s kind of an action/adventure. Check back here for a linky to a review on GameChronicles soon.

Crime Life: Gang Wars (Xbox) - this is another review game, a beat ‘em up action game. Look for a review on GameChronicles soon.

None of those really grabbed me fully, however, to the extent of “addiction”…. but …. one game has ….

Animal Crossing: Wild World (Nintendo DS) - This game is pure crack. I laughed at people who had pre-ordered this game, thinking it was going to be dorky. Well, call me a dork. I’m hooked. It’s a very simple game, really. You make up a character name and a town name. You move into town and immediately get sandbagged by the local entrepreneur with a big mortgage for your house, and you got no money. But there are lots of ways to make “bells” in the game (the currency). And you’ll get to meet all the talking animals that also live in your town. The main purpose of the game seems to be in collecting stuff. You can catch fish, bugs, find fossils, collect furniture and items for your house, upgrade your house, try and build up relationships with the other town folk, etc. It’s got a suprising amount of depth. And you can even go online using Nintendo Wi-Fi and visit the towns of your friends. I haven’t had a chance to try that yet, but plan to do it this weekend some. I wanted to get a feel for the game first. So far I’m rating this game A+, best game on the DS so far. If you have this game, post me or email me your friends code so we can visit each other in the game!

I scored some great new gaming goods for Christmas. Here’s a list of my loot:

Nintendo DS Mario Kart Bundle - very cool, have been playing the crap out of it already. It also plays GBA games great and have been playing Golden Sun, a nice RPG for GBA.

Ninja Gaiden Black (Xbox)
Burnout 3: Takedown (Xbox)
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (PS2)
Dragon Quest VIII (PS2) - can’t wait to start this as soon as I finish my review games
Shining Force Neo (PS2)

What gaming swag did you haul in this year?

Oh and also, I’m stuck in Golden Sun. Does anyone know how to find the thieves’ stash in the inn in Vault? I used Mind Read on the gang and found out they stole the rod, and that it’s hidden in the Inn but I can’t seem to find it.