12.10.08
Posted in Demolitionist, Gaming, Rants
at 8:06 pm
When I reviewed the original Meteos way, WAY back in 2005, I said that it was quite possibly the DS’s first killer app. It was a clever and inventive puzzle game that used the stylus controls to great effect. It still is a good game, but in transitioning to the big screen and a traditional controller, Meteos Wars loses a great deal of its charm. The core game itself is unchanged: match three blocks vertically or horizontally to launch them skyward and assault your opponents. In concessions to the drawbacks of the controls change, the action is a tad slower and a bit more lopsided (in that stacking blocks to the ceiling can sneak up on you and trigger a loss before you can react to it at all). Overall I think it’s a good try at the game, but unfortunately it’s just not suited for traditional controls. If you don’t have a DS you might be able to enjoy it, but try the demo first for an hour or so. If you do have a DS, hunt down a copy of the original (or if you absolutely can’t find that, the Disney edition works in a pinch too)– it’s worth the extra outlay of cash.
I honestly have nothing terribly good to say about PowerUp Forever. It’s a good try at being a frantic shooter along the lines of Super Stardust or Geometry Wars, but the rules for the special weapons are unclear and unintuitive, and it’s just painfully generic otherwise. Shooter fans should give this a look at least to see if they can figure out what differentiates it from the aforementioned games, but I think I can safely skip this one, too.
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12.08.08
Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming
at 7:59 pm
At 7:54p, I defeated the final boss of Penny Arcade Adventures: On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness Episode 2 on Xbox Live Arcade. This is the thirty-fifth game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Chrono Trigger (DS), followed by Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP) and Psychonauts (Xbox). Game was cleared over 6 days.
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Posted in Gaming, Rants
at 1:55 pm
The Wii.
(Place your bets now on how long it takes for someone to accuse me of being directly responsible for the death of gaming.)
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12.06.08
Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming
at 10:09 am
At 9:55a, I destroyed Dr. Wily’s escape pod, the final boss of Mega Man 9 on WiiWare. This is the thirty-fourth game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Penny Arcade Adventures Episode 2 (XBLA), followed by Castle Crashers (XBLA) and Chrono Trigger (DS). Final clear time (not counting unsaved failed assaults on Wily Castle) was 4:50 over 75 days.
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12.04.08
Posted in Gaming, Movies, Shameless Self-Promotion, Site News, Television
at 7:10 pm
In case anyone’s planning to rob my house really interested, I went ahead and updated the Collection page, over to your right. I’ve been on the verge of wanting a second ‘big’ shelf to put the cabinet stuff in for quite some time now, and while I still have plenty of room, the primary purpose of the big shelf is to give me an at-a-glance look at the backlog. Despite my best efforts, this is becoming increasingly difficult to accomplish.
Anyway. Enough bragging, I go now to eat and relax for a little while.
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12.01.08
Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming
at 8:31 pm
At 8:22p, I completed Stage 3 of Space Invaders Get Even on WiiWare. This is the thirty-third game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP), followed by Chrono Trigger (DS) and Castle Crashers (XBLA). The main game (no DLC) was completed in twenty minutes.
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11.30.08
Posted in Bailout, NaNoWriMo, Rants, Site News, Writing
at 7:53 pm
So I’m back in Pittsburgh. I hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving… Really, I’d have more to say but right now I’m just a little tired. The weekend was good, with a few hiccups, but I’m ready for bed already. Oh, and for the record, I did hit my 50K goal for NaNo on Saturday night, so there’s that– I’ll probably spend the rest of the week finishing up the last four chapters before I get even more distracted by Chrono Trigger. I swear, that game is so good it’s bad for me. Anyway, catch you all… eventually. Oh, I have game and anime reports due on the LJ at some point this week… so I suppose I’ll see you there.
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11.22.08
Posted in NaNoWriMo, Shameless Self-Promotion, Writing
at 3:26 pm
I seldom make blog posts “in the field”– the fact that I use the WordPress app for the phone makes me glad it was free– but right now I’m sitting in a Panera Bread in Monroeville, my usual writing place, and I’ve just hit the halfway point of the new draft of Blueberries. I still haven’t figured out a new, more appropriate title for the book yet (Blueberries stemmed from a conversation near the middle of the original draft), but that’s later. Right now, the halfway point is as good as any to give the usual update on how things are going.
( Beyond this cut there exist spoilers. Read at your own risk… » )
Overall, I’m looking forward to being able to present this to you guys when the time comes. With Thanksgiving coming up, I’m certainly not going to be able to get the whole thing done before the first of December, but I’ll definitely hit the 50K mark; I’m just barely under 40K right now (and I really ought to get back to that, in point of fact) but I’m planning on getting a couple thousand more each night before I head back to the homestead on Wednesday morning. Trust me, you’ll know when I hit 50.
Oh, and once this writing is all done (and the thing is formatted properly), I’ll be doing quite a bit of catching up; I’m looking forward to announcing my 30/30/109 list. Ciao, kiddies.
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Posted in Game Cleared 2008, Gaming
at 8:42 am
At 8:30a, I defeated The Collector, final boss of LittleBigPlanet on the Playstation 3. This is the thirty-second game cleared in 2008. The next game that is queued for completion is Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness (PSP), followed by Psychonauts (XB) and Penny Arcade Ep. 2 (360). Game was cleared over 24 days.
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11.17.08
Posted in Demolitionist, Gaming, Rants
at 9:47 pm
(Doing something new, folks: any time a demo strikes my fancy, I’ll write up impressions here. I’ve done it enough for other demos, might as well give it a formal name. Anyway, enjoy.)
RPGamer broke the news about the Neverland Card Battles demo today, and it was almost as an afterthought that I gave it a spin. I kinda wish I hadn’t, though; while the game’s mechanics are sound, and a bit more intuitive than Culdcept’s, the execution is quite a bit lacking– due mostly to the utter uselessness of the online help and the excruciating sound effects. I skipped over the story under the impression that I wouldn’t want it spoiled for me; and I’m not about to go back to find out what I missed.
The game’s mechanism for obtaining mana is based on the number of squares on the playfield colored in with your color; you color squares by walking over them with your units. This brings a strategic element to the combat– or at least that’s the intent. Instead it makes the game entirely a turn-based strategy game hamstrung by a patently ridiculous and severely broken card deployment mechanism. Whereas Culdcept had you winning based on an accumulation of points, NCB requires you to annihilate your opponent’s Dominator unit to win. It’s broken because the enemy can just sit back and flood the field with cheap monsters which you have to hack through agonizing square by square. The only thing stopping you from doing the same is that you will always get crappy cards.
Ordinarily I would give the game the benefit of the doubt given that a demo, without the ability to customize the deck, isn’t a fair assessment of a game like this; but the problem is that I see just so much wrong with this game that I am grateful I had the chance to try it before wasting money or more time on it. The only thing this has produced, really, has been the name for a new feature on the site, and a desire to fire up Culdcept once the writing is done.
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