Well, Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume ain't going to happen for me, at least for now. I'm just not prepared to invest the time that is required to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to be doing in order to succeed in the game. I'm sure that it's pretty basic once you "get" it - but to "get" it takes time, effort and energy, and with a dozen games on my backlog, it's just not going to happen. It's a decent game, just not compelling enough for me to invest more time into it.

Legacy of Y's and the Dark Spire just arrived today for the DS. Looking at the two of them, it would appear based on reviews and player comments that the Dark Spire is really "old school" - and by that I believe they mean most of the bad things about games like incredibly difficult, cheap, and that focus on a trial and constant failure game mechanic. I should have done some more research before ordering that game, but I don't mind supporting Atlus games, we need these nichy titles to keep things interesting.

On the main consoles, I need to pick a game to work on next now that Halo Wars is finished (at least the main campaign part). I think I'm going to give Valkyria Chronicles a spin and see what happens with that. I tried it out a few weeks ago, it seems like a pretty good game that is different enough to be interesting.

Let's see what happens.

I'm on the final level of Halo Wars (playing on normal). The game was a decent romp through the Halo universe, though I'm not sure just yet how *much* I enjoyed the game mechanics and the style vs. my general inclinitation toward liking anything having to do with Halo. It reminds me of my first play through of Halo: Combat Evolved - the first FPS that I can say that I really finsihed on a console. At that time, I liked the game, but having never played a game in FPS mode I really struggled with the mechanics and getting used to the style of game play. I eventually played through the game again and discovered that I liked it a lot more on the second play through rather than on the first. I suspect that this will be the case for Halo Wars - I like the game, I just don't know what the hell I'm doing just yet. If I have time to go through the game again I'm going to give it a shot. Maybe I'll play through the campaign on co-op online at some point.

Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume is just kicking my butt on the other hand. It's a strategy RPG for the DS that is frankly pretty difficult in its learning curve with little to no guidance on how to approach the game and the missions. I really haven't mastered the controls of that game either just yet, but I like the story and the setting. I'm going to give it another go maybe later tonight before deciding on whether to finish it or to take a pass. I have Legend of Ys and Dark Spire coming from Amazon in the next day or so, and VP's time is running short if it doesn't grab me in the next day or so.

I noticed from an old post that Sly Cooper 2: Band of Thieves was released about five years ago in September of 2004. At that time I posted about how my six year old son Evan was discovering it and how quickly he mastered it. Five years later, after reading that post and smiling at the memory, I decided to bring out the old game and give my youngest son William, who will be six in May, a go at the game. The nut doesn't fall far from the tree, William is a master, just like his big brother was, and, ahem, me.

aea

I've taken on the first three or four levels of Halo Wars over the last week along with the first few hours of Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. I'm finding Halo Wars to be a difficult game to get the hang of, notwithstanding the complaints from the RTS snobbing elite that the game was "dumb downed"for the console crowd. Plume on the other hand is an interesting take on the RPG genre (being my first Valkyrie game) with an interesting twist tossed in that has peaked my interest.

With respect to Halo Wars, it's likely my lack of experience showing through, but I'm just finding the controls somewhat difficult and clumsy for the tasks at hand. The tutorials are pretty basic (even the advanced tutorial) and the game just throws you in to situations that progress at a greater rate of acceleration than my skills do. After re-playing the third or fourth level (Avalon City, I think) the fourth time I was starting to feel the sense of let-down that the game just doesn't translate very well into an RTS, particularly in terms of the scope and the story - not to menion the frustration of failure! I finished the level, and then the following level (which wassignificantly easier) and then put the game away for later play. I'm going to finish the game, being a big Halo fan (yes, I'll admit to reading most of the books), I still believe that there's a better than odds on likelihood that I just suck at it, and as I get better at the game and master the controls that there's a good, ne great game in there!

Plume on the other hand just hits at all of the levels that a strategy RPG of this sort should - an interesting battle system, a nice twist at the beginning, some weird other wordly events taking place that putsour character right smack dab in the middle of the action. It's still way too early to really have a great sense of the scope and the story arc, but I can tell that it's a game that will likely suck me in for a while.

I finished DQV last night (well, early this morning, veeerrrry early this morning)and I have to admit, it was a great game. I'm glad that they finally saw fit to share it with the rest of the world 15 or so years after its release in Japan. It was worth the wait. The little pack of goodness known as the NDS is really pulling in the RPG's lately, with DQV down I know have Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plumeon deck, and Legacy of Ys Book 1 and 2, the Dark Spire, Knights in the Nightmare, and Devil Survivor all backed up or pre-ordered. I also want to check out Avalon Code as well, it sounds different enough to be worth a few dozen hours of my time.

Sadly, I've given up on Afro Samurai, right near the end of the game. It's just too frustrating in terms of the controls and a real time sink of trial and error that is just not fun any more. The game itself is good and worth a shot for fans of the anime/manga series (I actually picked both up after I got to about the halfway point in the game) but you should be prepared for a lot of frustration due to very finicky controls. The last few chapters also really increase the difficulty level, and when you combine more difficult levels with frustrating controls, a bad camera system and some frustrating platform levels... well, sadly, it's past its prime. I can see the talent, and perhaps even the genius behind what the developers were looking to develop, but I think they reached to high and/or ran out of time. I'd give it a solid 7.5 out of ten, because when it's good, it's really good.

Next up is Halo Wars on the 360 and Covenant of the Plume on the DS.

Came back from a few weeks in Florida with my family over spring break. It was fantastic.

In terms of my GOTGO list, I'm still working through DQV on the DS - which has slowly become my platform of choice for the portability and the increasingly impressive games list. I'm about 30 hours into the game now searching for Bianca in Lofty Peak and trying to figure out how to use my magic carpet and the magic key. My sons are really getting into it as well, they just love to lie on the bed beside me as I play through an hour or so. I've named the two children Evan (my son) and Jenifer (my daughter) in the game and now that they're in the party they are amazed that they "are in" the game. My younger son William has decided that he wants to be Sabre, and so the posse for the game is officially me, Evan, Jenifer and Sabre.

The Afro Samurai game is still in the backlog. I've enjoyed it enough so far that I was inspired to buy the graphic novel and took it with me on the vacation in Florida. I enyoyed that, though the story was a bit shallow in comic format. I watched the animated version on DVD, it's a good if not overly deep story. I've heard that theyre making a movie version which I believe will do well given its target audience. I still intend to finish the game version, and have left Halo Wars in the original packaging unopened until I'm done. Come to think of it, Valkuria Chronicles for the PS3 is also in the packaging and so is Covenant of the Plume for the DS.

The backlog continues to grow. What can I say, I'm busy!

I'm working through my growing game backlog - I've resorted to keeping the games that I've bought but still haven't played through (or at least haven't played enough) on my Games Playing list here at Gamespot... it's making me realize that I'm wasting my money by buying the games new when I can just wate a few months to buy them used or at a reduced price. I don't see how anybody could have played through the massive Christmas season's worth of games and the coming onslaught and still have a life away from the tv... I don't get it.

Top priority right now is Dragon Quest V on the DS - my RPG system of choice for whatever reason. I finished DQIV last year, the first DQ game that I've ever finished and really enjoyed it. So far DQV is even better, it's "old school", but fun.

I recently finished The World Ends With You, also by Square Enix I believe, and that was one seriously different game. It was a great change of pace, though the ending was completely confusing. Apparently, to "truly" get it, you need to continue through some side missions after the game is finished, but who has time for more side missions after putting in over 20 hours into a game? Just give me the story damn it, and LET ME decide if I want to go on additional side missions.

On the console front, I've been working through Afro Samurai, which while not perfect, it is a good game with some very adult material in it. It's hard to find the time for the game since four letter foul language pervades throughout, and I don't want the kiddies to be hearing it from outside of my dungeon. Halo Wars is on deck next, but I'm going to really try not to move on to HW until I'm done with Afro Samurai, I find that doing so almost always means that I dont go back to the previous game.

Having recently noticed this new "Gamespot Unions" concept - and noticing the logo - a red star with the "sickle" replaced by a gamepad, it both shocked and aggravated me. How can a "videogame" website choose a symbol of one of the most gruesome group of mass murderes in the history of the world as their lame "logo". I would say that the only thing worse might be a swastika, but given that the Soviet Union and it's cohorts were responsible for the outright murder and starvation of 20 to 30 million people, and the enslavement and torture of hundreds of millions more, I'm not sure that a swastika *would* have been worse. Given that the world has recently celebrated "VE" day's 60th anniversary, in which the Nazi armies were finally vanquished, followed by the annexation of the people's in Latvia and the surrounding regions and the eventual annexation into slavery of most of eastern europe (where my family was fortunate enough to eventually escape from) - this is just utter and complete bulls*it.

Does anybody with a moderate knowledge of history edit or manage this group of sites? What a disgrace.

By any logical reason the PS2 should be in last place this console war. It came out a year after the Dreamcast and at it's launch - the line-up of PS2 games looked worse than the then current Dreamcast games. Most of the developers complained that the PS2 was hard to program for, and it had huge aliasing problems with jaggies showing up all over the screen. And frankly, the launch line-up sucked.

So why did it win, and why after so much time can they still sell it for so much? One Reason: Developers and Exclusives. The same reason that the Dreamcast failed - and why Nintendo (and Microsoft) are not way ahead.

If you want to play a whole bunch of games - especially RPG's and so-called "cool" exclusives (yes, they did come out over a year or two later on the Xbox, I know ...) mass games like GTA - you just *have* to have a PS2. It's the safest choice for the mass market because nearly every developer will make games for that system. Sony realized this from the beginning - that if you win the publishers and the developers, then you win the public. So while it has weak first party developers (compared to Nintendo, or even Microsoft) it has the strongest third party support.

Microsoft is using the same approach - buying into exclusives if it needs to (i.e. Bungie and Rare) and also paying big bucks to make sure that EA and others fully support it. In fact, one of the main reasons that Sega uses to explain the failure of the Dreamcast was that EA decided not to support it. You need the developers, and especially EA (even though I hate EA and don't play their games myself).

Nintendo doesn't believe in this approach. They build their consoles primarily to support their own first party games (they admit this in the design of the keypad and stuff and also they make decisions like choosing mini disks that hold a fraction of the data of the other consoles and neven dropping support of components like progressive scan or online adaptors in their consoles to cut costs (meanwhile Sony released their PStwo and actually made it cooler while adding stuff to it so that it could continue to sell at HIGHER price). Nintendo jut doesn't really focus that much on the third parties (at least not as much as Microsoft and Sony). So in the end, if you like Nintendo first party games, then you have to own a Nintendo system, and that's basically Nintendo's market.

The problem is that people that don't own a Nintendo console and that aren't familiar with Nintendo first party titles (let's face it - it's been a loooooong time since NES and Super Mario World when Nintendo was an undisputed number one) have no reason to buy it when the games that everybody is talking about aren't on that system.

But having said all of that - some developers - like Capcom with Resident Evil 4 still go out of their way to support the Cube with what may be the best title on the system (Matt on IGN said thait if it came out in 2004 it would have been his GOTY). If it doesn't sell a few million copies - while Fable can do that on the Xbox as the biggest disappointment of the year - what do *you* think developers will do?

If Resident Evil 4 does not sell through (and I mean BIG TIME) on the Gamecube - I think the repercussions will last through to the next generation as well. It may be a stretch to day this - but if RE 4 is not a blockbuster, then Nintendo may have lost the next round in the console fight before it even begins.

Wondering if there's any little hidden gems on their way in 2005? Here's a loooong list of some under the radar games that are coming oir way for next year. Now I'm sure that some of these games will get postponed, some will be moved to the Xbox 2 and some might out right suck. But - MAN! There's some great looking games coming out:

Stolen
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/adventure/stolen/

Scrapland
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/scrapland/

The Roots
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/theroots/

Resonance
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/resonance/

Project: Snowblind
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/snowblind/

Pariah
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/pariah/

Metal Wolf Chaos
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/metalwolfchaos/

Mercenaries
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/mercenaries/

Hollow
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/hollow/

Fate of Ages
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/fateofa ges/

Dungeon Lords
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/dungeonlords/

Darkwatch
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/darkwatch/

Cold Fear
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/coldfear/

Citizen Zero
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/rpg/bigworldcitizenzero/

Black
http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/action/black/

Add to the list if you know or have heard of other games that are flying low. And ...

HAPPY NEW YEAR!