Hello peoples..

Exceptional Turn based rpg's are few and far between and yet they are the most numerous form. Why do we have to get bombarded by crap games that never take advantage of killer mechanics that got introduced or used in other RPG's from the same genre?? Because developers are stupid #1 and #2 they dont spend time playing video games in their downtime to even learn what other developers have done. So this blog is to help out all the crappy developers in the world *cough* japan *cough*.

Its probably way to late to even bother doing this, my tolerance for turn based rpg's hrows less and less each time I play a crappy one. If I had started this when i was a kid I could have wrote a freaking internet full of favorite mechanics and stuff but now I barely remember the names of all the games I played little lone the mechanics lol. So anyways I'm going to try to make a very specific list of the mechanics I LOVE in turn based rpg's and think should be included in all. You guys can help add to the list but keep in mind I have to agree as it is my list. You can make your own lists and rip off all my suggestions and include your crappy ones =)

Oh and by no means is this a final version, it will never be final.

Action Points: Action points are awesome and usually let you vary your attacks just to make combat a little bit better than doing the same thing over and over. Legend of Legaia(ps1), and Xenosaga 1(ps2) are some good examples.

Timed Attacks: Instead of just mindless clicking the attack button games with timed attacks actually make you pay attention and reward you with extra damage and or effects for timing a button press with the attack animation.Super Mario RPG(snes), Vagrant Story(ps1), Gladius(ps2), and Shadow Hearts(ps2, so i hear??)are all good examples of this.

Switch out: Games that let you switch out characters in the midst of battle are sweet(unless it becomes mandatory). FF10(ps2, mandatoy boo) and Xenosaga 1(ps2, optional yay) are examples of this. Usually games that do this have a large cast of playable characters which is also great.

Equal share XP AND Split XP: Games that let all party members get the same amount of xp after a battle are good. (dont have examples lol). On the OTHER hand games that divide XP earned amongst the characters who survive the battle is also good because then you can kill off your loser ally's and hog all the XP!!! FF12(ps2), and Xenosaga(ps2) are examples of Split XP

SOLO/ally killers: Games that let you control who and how many people are in your party rule. If they force you to take people with you then they better allow you to attack your own people. FF12(ps2) is an example of getting to choose your party, FF10(ps2) is an example of a game that lets you attack ally's and forced party members. I have to say though that however fun it is to go solo and be a bad ass it usually ends up just bogging down the game and making it less fun for people who want to level everyone up. So im kinda mixed on this.

Initiative: Having each unit in battle run on its own time and not having the order of battle pre-determined rules. You have to pay attention and try to take advantage of what happens. This only rules if you are allowed to see the next several units to get a turn next. It just makes each battle unique and random. Xenosaga 1(ps2), and uhhh several FF's are examples of this

Random Rewards: This hasnt really been done to the extent im thinking about. Xenosaga 1(ps2) is the inspiration for this. Each unit in xenosaga has its own turn, each turn the game moves this event wheel thing that has bonus effects for that persons turn. Some of the effects are increased critical hits, bigger increase to your boost guage(that lets you take extra turns) or a point multiplier for after battle reward points that you use to buy magic, or improve your stats and skills. If you kill an enemy when the point multiplier event is active you randomly get 2-10x the points for that enemy. It would be so killer to see a waay deeper mechanic of this. It could be like a slots mini-game or something. Everytime you kill a single monster or maybe only after an entire battle you would randomly(or through the use of a mini-game) get random multipliers to your gold, xp, items, whatever. In Xeno1 you are force to wait for that event to come around before you kill people which also added a strategic element to battles. I dont know if all these random multipliers should be part of the battle like that or just be automatic every time. I do know getting random awards is awesome and way better than most other rpg's.

Tom-Tom: Thats the name of a GPS device/service for vehicles in the USA that tells you how to get around the streets of any city. It would be sweet to have that as an OPTIONAL thing in RPG's. What it would do is somehow highlight which paths lead to dead ends and which paths lead further ahead while your walking through dungeons and crap. I dont know about you guys but I am sick of the whole rat in a maze thing and trying to figure out my way through them. It bogs down the game. For me personally I would use it so that I could explore every nook and cranny ina maze, I would go down every dead end path FIRST before i advanced. I count tell you how much time I have wasted trying to decide on which path to take. Most of the time its like "Is this going to lead to a cutscene which will mean i cant go back or that I have to come back to the dungeon and come back through all this crap to explore the dead end path or is this a dead end and I should go see whats down it before moving on?". Im sure some people would rather just blaze through the dungeon and forget about all the extra crap thats down dead ends. And im sure there are those who would never turn it on and enjoy being a rat in a maze and figuring it out on their own. But atleast give us this freaking option!!!

Ok thats all I got for right now, maybe I will think of more later. If you got some suggestions lets hear em!!! I want to make an ultimate mechanic list for turn based rpg's that make them go from lame and boring to killer and addictive.It would be hella sweet to see these all get used in one game.

I used to write reviews alot. Then the new gen started and I was stuck in the previous generation with hardly any new games. Didnt have much to write about. Now that I have a current gen system and am playing new games again I just can't find the energy to write them but at the same time I wish i would lol.

Maybe cuz I feel like its crunch time and Im still trying to play catch up with the current gen. MAYBE it has something to do with every time I get moderated all the points I made writing reviews go flying out the window!!! Heh that doesnt really have anything to do with me not writing them but it does hurt to see my level so low lol. Damn over sensitive politically correct --------------!!!!

And then there is my chaotic style/noob style of doing reviews where I dont know how to present things in a nice orderly clean fashion that makes it all understandable or even what to talk about. I am more of a critic and enjoy ripping a game to pieces and exposing all of its flaws or percieved flaws. Well I do have notes written for two games and I was going to say I never talk about the good things but i did mention good things in them so maybe im not as bad as i thought.

And how much sense does this make writing a blog about not being able to write reviews lmao?? Why am i not writing the reviews i want to write. Oh well it looks like most people are pissed off at reviews in general anyways lol. They hate "professional" and player reviews alike. Thats why i try to focus on the mechanics and guts of the game. I think people wanna know what the game plays like in relation to other games. Is this a 2d side scroller like mario is it a 3d metroid prime, is it a resident evil? How is it like those but different?? Maybe I should make that my theme for reviews. Call them Clone Reviews or Clone wars. Heh I like that Clone Wars... that usually has a very negative connotation but most games are clones of one another and it doesnt matter. Fun is fun. Then the whole review could be about how they are similar and how they are not and then i could say which one won the war!! And/Or how it stands on its own.

Oh well can't write any reviews today.....got to much to do....

Xenosaga 1(ps2) = 5.30$
Xenosaga 2(ps2) = 14.00$
The Last Remnant(360) = 23.49$
Gladius(ps2) = 9.00$
Total = 51.79

I beat Xenosaga 1 when it dropped and when you beat the damn game it wont let you go back in and keep playing and since it was going to be months before the next one dropped I erased it from my memory card and havent given a crap since. Well 5$ was super cheap so I got it. My number 1 priority for going to ebay this time though was to grab Gladius. Again I played this game when it dropped and all I can remember was that I thought it sucked. I know I didnt make it very far. But people keep going on and on about how cool it is and all the customization in it. Ok it was also dirt cheap and worth giving a second shot to.

Next up was The Last Remnant. I've waded through most of the FPS/Action crapfest of the 360 and finally got around to trying out some of the RPG's which I would say is the genre that easily makes up the majority of my collection of games. The Last Remnant is really freaking amazing and is like an amazing mix of FF12 and Ogre Battle.

That left me with only a small amount of money left. Not enough for another 360 game. So I figured hey why not get the next part of Xenosaga. Whats sad is my poor ps2 hasnt been used in a couple of months. I've been meaning to get back to it. I still have some unfinished business with FF X-2 which is one of the game I got the last time i went ebaying. Gotta grab the Dark Knight DS and then who knows what after that. I think im pretty near the end.

Ok anyways what will I be setting my sights on next.... I keep looking to fill in the gaps in my .Hack series(both series) But those have to be super cheap because I've already beat them and only want them for when i get the urge one day to replay through the story. I've been watching Diablo 1 for ps1 but idots have that game on lockdown. I think my new #1 most wanted game will be Earth Defense Force 2017. That game is hella wicked and I would love to own it. I love blasting bugs!!

Peace out -------, and happy bidding.

I love movies and enjoy a wide variety. I pay for a discount at my local rental store and rent movies for 1.30$ for 1 night. That will probably jump to 1.50-2.00$ by the end of this year greedy ---------. That means I never see movies at the theatre and aways have to wait 3+ months to wait for them to hit dvd which I dont care about since I pay so little. If I had the money I would love to have a huge CD binder and just have it filled with my favorite movie but sadly I dont own movies. I dont rewatch movies very often anyways. Once is good enough lol. Later if they come on tv and I dont have anything better to do thats fine but otherwise I always have something better to do. Anyways here goes the list for 2009.

Babylon A.D. - Crap
Behind Enemy Lines: Colombia - good
Righteous Kill - good
Appaloosa - good (crap ending)
Swing Vote - awesome
City of Embers - great (Fallout 3 fans must see)
The Gene Generation - tolerable (mmmm Bai Ling)
Lakeview Terrace - good
Rocknrolla - good
Blindness - awesome
Chocolate - .....(awesome martial arts sequences)
Mircale at St. Anna - great
Fist of the Warrior - CRAP
Body of Lies - good
Quarintine - crap
Australia - good
Transporter 3 - awesome
Role Models - good
Punisher: War Zone - good
Slumdog Millionair - awesome
Seven Pounds - great (awesome if you watch it directly after slumdog)
Bedtime Stories - great
The day the earth stood still - great
Doubt - good acting but stupid craphole ending
Fight Night - ...alright (freakily reminds me of a rpg game i was playing on a forum..)
The Spirit - great
Into the Blue 2 - *vomit*
Wolverine and the X-men - 3 episodes??? wtf is that???
Bride Wars - awesome
Underworld: Rise of the Lycans - good
Taken - good (sorry for your loss Liam)
Outlander - good (similar to the game Too Human and the movie 13th Warrior)
Paul Blart: Mall Cop - good (some highs, some lows on the humor)

Damn it I wish I could talk more about some of these movies but I dont want to spoil them for anyone.

Yay! Three years late to the party but i finall made it to current gen. Like always this list doesnt represent the games I necessarily own just the games I had a damn fun time playing. *note to self, don't forget to alphabetize*.

Army of Two
Assassin's Creed
Battlefield: Bad Company
Bionic Commando
Brother's In Arms: Hell's Highway
Command and Conquer: any
Crackdown
Dynasty Warriors 6
Earth Defense Force 2017
Fable 2
Fallout 3
Fracture
Gears of War 1-2
GTA 4
Mass Effect
Naruto: The Broken Bond
Project Sylpheed
Resident Evil 5
Rumble Roses XX
Saints Row 1-2
Spiderman: Web of Shadows
Stormrise
Tenchu Z
The Last Remnant
Too Human

I recently got FF10 off ebay and I just started playing it and luckily I have forgetten almost every single shred of the storyline(I've already beaten the game once). I thought it might be fun to write down my favorite moments from the game as I play. (spoiler alert for those who hvent figured it out by now)

Tidus - "You guys have been fighting Sin for 800 years and havent won yet?"

Little Kid - "I wanna be a blitzball when i grow up!"

Kilika Beast Player - "When we win the tournament this will be my victory pose."

Lady - "What? You've never seen a chocobo? What kind of back-water island did you come from, anyways?"

Barthello - "I'll never wash this hand again!!"

Auron - "Jecht was drunk and stabbed it with his sword thinking it was a fiend..."

Jecht - "So whats a summer-ner, anyway?"

Wakka-> Rin - "We have to pay? If we die then so will you, buddy!
Rin-> Wakka - "I have faith in your victory."

This blog is more for me than any of you because of my crap memory but it might help some of you out to. Something I am ALWAYS forgetting when I start gobbling up used games off ebay is to use YOUTUBE to check out gameplay footage of the games I have never had a chance to play.

Just about every game you can name is on there(usually with some dipsticks favorite crap song pasted over the games music).

Look at screen shots, read PLAYER reviews(good and bad), and watch gameplay footage.

This can help save you from making some really stupid choices, sometimes... sometimes you still have to get the game and actually play it to learn if you like it or not.

Youtube, Youtube, Youtube!!!!!!! Heh maybe I should make a Youtube clip of myself telling me to remember to use Youtube and then link myself to it lol.

Well I helped disassemble a giant above ground pool and also helped my Dad tear the chimney off our house(it was rotting and if you have read previous blogs of mine it was how the bats were getting into the basement). The end result is I had 160$ in my pocket and that can mean only one thing. Time to go shopping on ebay!!!

The ps2 has been the console I have owned the most games for ever. I was just a kid during the NES and SNES phase and didnt care that I only got to rent stuff. PS1 I started buying stuff here and there but I only have a handful of games for it. But the ps2 I have bot quite alot of new and used games and have a fairly large collection which is nice.

Anyways....this is what I blew the money on. These prices include shipping:

-Mercenary 2(new from gamestop) 43$. It was fun but no replay value. Basically its a part 2 that didnt improve on a single freaking thing except the graphics. Go figure.

-S.L.A.i. 8$. Never showed up at my local video store so i figured I would grab it. Nobody else had bid on it and I got it for dirt cheap lol. Its ummm....different. It has some god awful country hillbilly music in it which makes me vomit in my mouth. The game is layed out very poorly. You goto a fight and last as long as you can to earn money and when its over you move on to the next day. Each day there is a different klass of competition and one day your fighting newbs like you and the next day is full of elite pilots with elite machines who can one hit kill you. So you just have to skip days until you get to newbie fights. The controls are pretty horrable. I could go on and on right now but lets just say I am undecided on this game yet.

-Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2 34$. This series is always getting talked about and I was in a hack n slash rpg type of mood and I never got to rent this series so I thought I would go for it. 34$ for something off ebay is something I would never do but I never got to play the game, people said good things about it, its price was really high on ebay and gamestop wanted 50 for it. Well anyone who ever said anything nice about this game is a freaking crackhead. The game absolutely sucks. You get forced into using pre-made character, the armor and views of your characters are nasty and hideous. Its a freaking joke and I cant even bring myself to play it anymore.

-Champions: Return to Arms 21$. I had already played this game lots and was the main reason I wanted to try BG.DA2. This game disappeared from my video store and my gamestop didnt have a copy so I had to get it now. This is one of the best co-op games you can play on the ps2. I love the single player to. I have a lv70+ elf archer chick playing on legendary. I had a cool Erudite chick fairly high level but I dont know what happened to her save file. I had another save file on another memory card but when i tried to load it, it was blank. So I had to start over. This game is infinitely better than Baldur's Gate. I do have one problem with it. The loot system is extremely fubarred. My level 70+ elf chick playing on the hardest mode finds level 10-20 stuff mostly. The suggested level for legendary difficulty is 65. So should everything im finding be 65+?? You hardly ever get gear appropiate for your current level. Do whatever it takes to get yourself a copy of this game.

-Kingdom Hearts 1 9.71$. OMG I thought this auction was for #2 lol. Later on when I was looking through items that were ending soon that I remembered/noticed the difference in the cover art for the two games and I was like oh crap the one i baught....Noooo.. Oh well. I have played and beat both KH games and I love them. I was hoping to skip 1 and just get my favorite one. I tried to start KH1 on expert and as a mage but I cant freaking make it paste the first boss monster so Im gonna start over. I am not a big fan of high difficulties. The main reason why I wanted to own KH2?? Gummi ship battles!!! I freaking love making gummi ships.

-FF X and X-2 18.75$. Eh. You would never know it but im not really that into FF. I've never had a stupid Cloud icon or had Cloud as part of a screen name lol. I've played alot of them but to me FF games are shallow and have boring combat which always come down to wasting all your time fighting off status ailments. BUT....FF X and X-2 were the best FF games on the ps2. I also own 12. I love blitzball and whatever they call that coin game in X-2. I love the chicks in X2 and how you get to change their outfits. And I think I got a damn good deal on them. I have no freaking clue when I will even bother starting these games. Im gonna use faqs to so i can uncover every little secret the game has to offer. I already beat X on my own and I dont remember how far I got in X-2.... I must have beat it if its not on any of my memory cards???

This left me with 25$. And if I can resist getting Spore Creatures(ds) long enough I want to blow the rest and then some on getting Spiderman: web of shadows. The gameplay looks sick but I know better than to get a spiderman game on blind faith. Each Spidey game has had strengths and weaknesses. 2 has great swing mechanics and no replay, Ultimate has great combat and venom and no replay, 3 had retards for programmers with glitchy graphics but it had great replay value. Treyarch better give me great replay value.

Am I done with ebay? NOT FREAKING LIKELY!!! I'd love to get my hands on MGS2-3, RE4 and Diablo and a whole bunch of crap I have already beaten.

After playing the hulk I was inspired to want a Transformers games and made a post about it. I dont want to forget my idea's so im putting them in this blog. Feel free to talk about the Transformers: Animated cartoon or my game idea's. Im not really a fan of the original cartoon or the CGI beast wars one so there isnt much use talking about those =P.

Have you guys seen the new "Transformers: Animated" series on cartoon network. Now they had some fancy CGI transformer cartoon a few years back but i just didnt get into those. I love this new one though. It realy has me wanting to play a transformer game.

I want it to a free roaming game that uses the Havok physics engine. Think Spiderman/ The Incredible Hulk games. Only instead of swinging through the city or jumping you could transform into a ground vehicle or something that fly's. Buildings could be smashable during fights. It would be sweet if you got to make your own bot. In the beginning you start out with one or two basic chassis types, but as you play through the game there would be others. You could play as an autobot or a decepticon. All these different chassis types could have different combat mechanics and combo's. Also as you play you would be able to upgrade specific things on a chassis type for example more health, faster, longer combo's, new moves.

Basically your vehicle form would be used for roaming around the map, Your bot form would be used for fighting and stuff. Oh yeah and the game would be cel-shaded!! like Ultimate Spidey for that sweet cartoony look. Oooooooo!!!!

I was saying you get to choose between Autobot/Decepticon and I was going to say that you do this from the main menu and they are basically two seperate sets of missions/two seperate games. Like you could do 6 missions on the autobot side and then save and then go play as a decepticon. BUT!!!!! I just thought of something incredibly more wicked.

One of the reasons KoToR is so wicked is that you get to CHOOSE between good and evil actions as you play. Fable does it to and I dont know which did it first. Maybe there was a game before either of those that introduced good/evil decisions. But that has been a serious inspiration for me every since I have played those games. Most notably I want it to be implemented in a DBZ game where you get to make your own custom character and either become the savior of the galaxy or its destroyer/master.

Tada, that would work out really freaking awesome with this game. And apparently nobody has even thought to include this in a free-roamer. its always goto the checkpoint and do what your told. Well in this transformers game you would goto the checkpoint and choose which side to help out. Near the end of the game or after the last story mission in the game you would end up on one of the two sides depending on which side you helped out more!!!! Of course there would also be a third ending for those who managed to stay in the middle.

Omg the movie was awesome and it gave me one cool idea I would like to rip off for my transformer game. It was cool how the transformers got their chassis type by scanning other vehicles.....They kinda screwed it up in the movies. it would have been cool if they come to a planet as a meteor and then crash and would remain a ball until they scan the nearest vehicle then it wouldnt be a matter of choice. Bumblebee ruined it when he scanned whatever new car that was(a charger?) and changed his shape. If they can do that the their forms are really meaningless. They all could have been tanks and F-22 Raptors.

Anyways as you play my game you could scan other vehicles as you play. There would be special vehicles that only show up on missions and stuff. Otherwise all the crap vehicles that drive around during the game would all get divided into catagories and your moves would depend on what catagory your current form is. Like Firetrucks and Garbage Trucks would be a heavy truck catagory and have the same moves even though they would look different. A sports car would have different moves than some cheapo used car or taxi. But at any time you could scan stuff and then it would get added to your chassis list and at any time you could change your form into something that is on your list.

I made this a post but nobody responded. I dont want to forget my idea for this game so im gonna put it in my blog. Feel free to talk about the cartoon or my game idea.

I freaking love this cartoon. Yesterday I was watching and I had a real Vision for how the game should be brought to consoles!!

Ok first off you have to define the different levels of chaotic. There is the real world where you and I are in(most of us),The next layer is kind of like Digimon in that certain kids with special chaotic codes get to be sucked into this virtual world. The main place you hang out in this virtual world is the lobby and the arena's. The third and last layer of the chaotic universe is the chaotic "planet". You can warp to the desert or the jungle or any of the other environments that make up the chaotic world for the creatures in the game.

Now if you have never seen the show newbies who finally enter the second layer start with a few cards but if they want more they have to warp to the third layer and walk around Chaotic and can scan stuff to add to their "Deck". They can scan creatures, locations, magic, battle gear. The twist is that they have to do this as a human.

The main focus of the cartoon is about two players on the second layer going to an arena to battle each other. They lay out a bunch of creatures and they take turns attacking one another by saying what creature attacks what creature. After the attacker chooses the two creatures the players get transformed into those creatures and they goto one of the defenders random locations to battle as the creatures. After you beat enough people in one of the domes you get to challenge a code master or a player with some killer creatures and weapons,magic, locations. I guess the overall goal is to beat each of the code masters.

The important thing to note is that the arena's in the second layer is the only place players are allowed to transform into those creatures and fight as them. They can't do that when they are out trying to get scans which makes it very dangerous.

Ok so back to the video game. I think its totally doable to have all three layers of chaotic in the game. First you get to make a character at home and meet new people. Then you finally get to goto chaotic's second level where you can meet yet more new people and hang out in the lobby/arenas and battle with people. Lastly you can also port to chaotic and go exploring for new scans of stuff which would be full of dangers and traps that you would have to navigate.

Im not to sure how to do the third layer. It definately needs to be free roam/platformer. Finding new scans of cards is one of the biggest part of the cartoon so this section of the game should be pretty fleshed out and be alot of fun.

As far as walking around and meeting people thats pretty easy to do in a game. Chaotic creatures are divided up into regions. It would be cool to have a bar for each region and depending on who you use in battles or how you talk to people your bar goes up and down and you would only be able to talk to certain people once your faction bar is high enough. The faction bars would also control how people talk to you. If you have none of their faction and alot of their enemy they would be hostile towards you, while if it was vice versa they would treat you like a good friend right from the get go.

The part of the video game I really want to make shine though are the dome battles where the players transform into the creatures and battle. For this part of the game I was thinking a very 3d "fighting" game. There wouldnt be combo's and special moves like most fighters. You would just be able to run around and jump on stuff, block, evade, shoot some beams, and activate magic spells. The battles would look and feel just like the cartoons with people moving around dodging each other's attacks until somebody wins. There are two games that kind of have the style of fighting im talking aout although they didnt have thing to jump on or hide behind.. The 1v1 mech battles in Xenogears...and.....this fighting game on the ps1 who's name I cant remember, I don't think it was Ergheizer but maybe it was...The game may have started with a D and been one word.....

Anyways I totally think a video game could recreate every aspect of the cartoon. The only trouble spot would be when the players goto that third layer to get scans, there are tons of cards and creatures so there has to be a way to force players into having to make multiple trips there without being able to grab all the scans at once and stuff and yet be fun so that they WANT to make multiple trips. Maybe divide that third layer up by faction. And then each faction is split up into smaller maps. You only unlock new map sections by making friends!!! That sounds awesome!!. You only make new friends by fighting with a certain faction's creatures and then raising your faction bar so that new people talk to you!! Omg that sounds freaking amazing.

Fight in the dome as an overworlder -> gain overworld faction points -> more overworld faction humans want to be your friend -> gain new overworld faction maps -> get to goto new map sections to grab new scans -> get better/cooler stuff to use in battles -> start winning dome battles -> start defeating code masters -> you win!!