I feel like I'm developing ADD or something. I can't seem to get into epic games as much anymore. I tried playing Dark Cloud 2. I loved the first one and I heard that the second one was even better. I found the game was too much. They took all the things I loved about the first game and made them overly complicated. Have I lost my patience or have games just gotten too ridiculous? Perhaps it's a combination of the two, or I'm just getting old. Dammit!
While I was back in NH and I only had access to my portables, I decided to take on Trace Memory, since I heard it was more of a Myst-type game and less a button masher. It was a really cool concept and good story, but the game was way too short! I beat the game in six hours. Six hours! That's got to be the shortest first-time runthrough I have ever documented in a game. I can see why the game only garnered sevens from most gaming sites. I think after Dave gets a chance to play it, I will trade it in.
Having said all this, I think Nintendo should venture into more games like this. It was an innovative idea and a lot of fun. I felt like I wanted much more. It's definitely worth a rental and a good way to rest your thumbs.
Christmas was very good to me this year. I got mostly DVD's and video games, but that's what I want, so it works out. I got the following:
Dragon Quest 8 plus Slime Controller Wild Arms: ACF Fire Emblem: POR Mario and Luigi: PiT PoPoLoCrois Accessories for my PSP
My fiancee also got a bunch of games too, but I can't remember all of them. At any rate, I'm pretty psyched and greatful that I'm happy and healthy this holiday season (despite getting the flu). My backlog still stinks, but I hope to catch up more in the upcoming year, now with some more free time that I will be acquiring (I hope to be writing a lot of music too).
For the old school RPG fans, I highly recommend FFIV for the GBA. I've completed the game and am accessing the bonus dungeons, and the goodies you get are amazing. They've also set things up in a way so that there is a bit of replay value to it, which also impressed me. I know that sounds vague but I don't want to give any spoliers away. It's just very awesome and has exceeded my expectations.
I still haven't figured out what game I want to play next, but I need to get this off my chest:
I'm sick and tired of these jerk-off graphics whores. Some gamers (which many call casuals) only play a game because it looks pretty and HAVE to look adult. You can't be caught dead playing something that's cartoony, regardless of the system. You people are missing out on some great games! Who cares how it looks. Is it fun? Then that is all that matters! I'd rather play Legend of Zelda from 1987 than play Final Fantasy X. Why? because Zelda is fun! FFX is a linear movie that got really slow really fast. It's the only game that I have started and have yet to finish it. I read reviews about people bashing a game because "it looks like something from the 1990's". Maybe we need stuff that looks like games from the 90's. I miss those games. We jumped into the 3D world and I feel like we lost site of how great the side-scroller is. All of a sudden we get these kids that like the eye candy and make us real gamers be subjected to your garbage. It's even worse when the people who work for places like this and IGN are in agreement with these graphics whores! You aught to be ashamed of yourselves!
I'm also sick of those exact same twerps because they are also gamers who only play games rated M (they're usually 12), and have caused the industry to release tons of CRAP like 50 Cent Bullet-Proof. Why would I want to play a video game about being on the streets and beating people up or what not? Why would I want to play a game like GTA where I steal cars, beat up cops and score with chics? I can respect that but it seems boring to me to want to do something that's illegal to do in real life. You could say the same thing about fighting zombies and shooting them up in Devil May Cry. Here is the difference: You cannot shoot up zombies in real life. It's fantasy folks and that's all video games should be. This is why stupid kids do dumb stuff and blame video games. It ends up making the rest of us look really bad.
I guess I'm just sick and tired of all the idiotic reviews of kids (and I know they are mostly kids) who give things bad reviews because they are not GTA. RPG's get crappier reviews, Nintendo games get crappier reviews (save Zelda and Metroid), anything that's not all "masculine" gets a bad rep in people's minds. Ugh!!!
I feel like I'm the only person that plays games for the sake of exploring fantasy worlds and do things I could never do in real life, like roll up the sun or turn into a Racoon from taking a magic leaf. I want to expand my imagination and creativity. I just want to play good games and I don't care about graphics!!!!
BTW, not to burst people's bubbles, but the 360 games don't look that much better than current gen games, so there!
I just finished the Katamari games, which I absolutely loved! I'm having trouble deciding what to play next in my collection. Basically anything I haven't rated yet is fair game. I tried to get into Mega Man Battle Network Transmission and I couldn't deal with the controls. I also tried to get into Metroid Prime 2 and under normal circumstances, I'd be all over it. Unfortunately, I think I only started the game because I hadn't played a Game Cube game in a while. I want to continue it later.
I think working on Disgaea for six months completely drained my attention span. I CAN'T play a tactical RPG at the moment, and my fingers still hurt from rolling the world up. I'm stuck and I also need/want to get my backlog cut down. I need suggestions!
The anticipation is finally over with a crap load of games. If I had an endless supply of money I would probably have preordered everything, but since I'm poor and left many a game on my christmas list, I'll have to wait until December 25 to enjoy many of the games.
DQ 8 makes me very excited. I keep reading the good reviews and it makes me even happier. Dragon Quest has always been an unsung hero in the states and this game has gotten the best reviews I've seen on a DQ game yet. This makes me very hopeful that we may see other DQ games being localized. I'm kind of cheering for the DQ V PS2 remake or if anything can be done to pick up the pieces, the DQ IV PS remake. I know that's obselete but I don't care. I just love DQ!!!!
Wild Arms: Alter Code F. I've been waiting for this game for like a year an a half now. Six months plus the year of delays. I feel like i need to go to EB and just make sure the game is on the shelf, no offense to Agetec. I bet it will be a great localization. This will also hopefully be under the christmas tree.
Legend of Heroes: The poor PSP is riding on GTA for its selling point. It's a spiffy system, and I'm glad it's getting some RPG's. It will never replace my DS (which I absolutely LOVE), but hey I'm a gamer. I play the systems that have games I like on it, and finally the PSP made a showing. Confirm a localization of Katamari, and we're in business. This game I treated myself and preordered.
Next month I will be lined up outside EB's door for FFIV advance. I think this week I'll ask if there's a preorder bonus and if so I will do it. I usually don't go that nuts over a game, but come on! It's FFIV! Look at my icon!!11!111!! If the new rydia sprite looks cool, I may use that one for a while.
I think people unfairly rate remakes. They compare them to new games on the market and expect them to be on par. That's asking for very unrealisitc expectations. Romancing Saga got like a 6/10 on this site, but garnered much better ratings on RPG sites that acknowledge it to be a remake. I haven't played the game, but I bet that it deserves at least a 7 something. Sword of Mana got a crappy score on this site too, and people who didn't realize it was a remake thought the game sucked too. Play Final Fantasy Adventure for the gameboy, then play Sword of Mana and tell me how you feel. They did an amazing job remaking the game, adding to the storyline and improving the gameplay. It deserves at least an 8/10 over how good the remake is.
The most recent debate is with Wild Arms: Alter Code F. This game is a remake of the PS1 game, and they improved the graphics, along with overhauling the storyline and characters. Sounds pretty cool huh? Well for some reason, it's been delayed a bunch and now no one cares. It's sad, because people are ripping on the graphics being out-of-date. Well it's a remake! And the graphics aren't THAT bad. That can't be a factor with remakes.
I guess the point I am trying to make is that when rating a remake, don't compare it to other new games on the market, but look at how the game has been improved from its predecessor and go from there.
On another note, my PSP hasn't shown up yet and I think the dude on half.com swindled me. It's a shame that the system is so popular that people have to be jerks. The expected delivery time was Oct 21-Nov 1, so there's still a few more days, but I have a bad feeling heads are gonna roll.
Maybe this is a "duh" but I think I figured out the problem with the rating system with video games. In the video game rating world, average is a 5. In acdemia, average is a C, which is in the 70-79 range. Anything that's less than an 8 has been engrained in our psyche to be average. So when something gets a 7 or 6 something, we think the person rating it is panning the game. I don't know how to fix this, but I know it reflects in the way I rate the games. Notice how lots of my reviews are in the 8ish range? I think those games deserve B's and are "good." Maybe I should be giving them 7's or something. I don't know.
On another note, I bought a PSP on half.com. I'm excited
I finally live in an area that gets G4 so I decided to watch it every now and then, and here's my thought: it's awful. I don't know where they get the chics that host, but I doubt any of them play games. They say the dumbest lines in the world, but hey they're eye candy right? They cater to the lowest common denominator of the American demographic who seem to only care about blood, guts, and more blood and guts. RPG's barely get covered and they talk about stupid racing games and crap like that. I never understood the appeal to sports games in general. Isn't it basically the same thing over and over? I mean granted Mario is the same thing over and over, but heres the difference: Nintendo, or Sega, or Squenix, or Nippon Ichi take the formula and add some sort of new twist to it to keep it fresh and interesting. You can't really just add new rules to football. I guess Madden 2006 has some sort of system where you can customize the QB or something, but still I can't imagine that being that fun. What's the goal? If people want to see bunch of people kick the tar out of eachother for a pigskin, why not go outside and see a real game? I play video games to get AWAY from reality so it never made sense to me.
Yeah back on topic: I saw G4's top ten most psychotic villains on TV today and I couldn't believe some of the people not on the list. Kefka from FFVI was, which I can completely agree with. I guess Seymour from FFX is a nut because he made it to number 4 or 5 or something. I can't believe I'm about to say this, but how could that countdown NOT have Sephiroth? I'm not even an FFVII fanchic, but I'll give credit where credit is due. He should have been number 1 and he wasn't even in the top 10, and Wario is on the list??? WTF?!
Finally, what I hated the most about this special I saw and an issue with G4 in general is that they spend so much time talking about stupid crap that has nothing to do with video games, like the latest cell phones. No wonder Americans no longer want a video game system, but a "multimedia system." Screw that. When the PS2 came out it was cheaper to get that versus a DVD player because it could do other things. Now DVD players are cheap. I don't need it. I don't need a cell phone, I don't need an MP3 player and I don't need a computer. I have all those things, so why should I have to pay the extra money for that crap? Shouldn't a video game channel be about video games? And it would be nice if they didn't emphasize graphics so much. There's more to a game than it's pixels. Sheesh So far the only thing interesting I've seen is the bio on Shiggy Miyamoto from Nintendo.
Fire Emblem Path of Radience - October 17th I think
Games coming out by Christmas (way too many):
Dragon Quest VIII, Kingdom Hearts II, Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga 2, Mario DS (?) Zelda Twighlight Princess, Electroplankton, just to name a few....
All I want for christmas and my b-day are games.... very sad
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