Sunday, October 27, 2013

Catching up is hard to do

Work life, personal life, all life has been busy.  Thats no real excuse, however it will have to suffice for now.

I am in between seasons at work (which is nice) and I have been running around like a mad man catching up on work and playing some games.

Add to the fact that I just had my birthday (yesterday, 10/26 to be exact) and I got some cool things for it, I am going to update this here blog.

I am also impressed and found some drive to do so from a blog I found through a person I met through Twitter.  Seems like a decent man (still haven't ruled out the whole serial killer angle, but who knows).  Him and his wife have a blog over @ http://randomnerdom.blogspot.com/ and I think everyone should check it out.  I am impressed by it.  They actually have taken time to design things and make it look pretty.  Unlike me and my "Just throw it up there and the people may come".


Anyways, stay tuned

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Bang Bang, Your Dead, I Complete


I love completing games.

Its a great feeling of accomplishment when I complete an older game.  I usually find these some of the harder ones to get through.  This tends to be because they have sat for so long in my collection I tend to file them always in that "They are already there and I will eventually get to them" part of my brain.  Yet when I do finish playing them it does provide me with a great moment of checking them off.  

Add the element of being on the handheld platform and that is even better.  I tend to have more difficulty getting through handheld (however that might be changing with my current playing trends) that completing each one is fantastic to me.

So I had talked about Wild Arms in an earlier post when I was about a quarter of the way through the game.  That was about a month ago, so I think I did pretty well, considering I completed the game in ~39 hours.  That includes overleveling (as always) and taking care of all the side quests and optional bosses.  


I like the Wild Arms series.  I know I have mentioned that in the past, but its a good series.  Its nice to get away from the big mainstream RPG games to see what things are like.  There are a lot of gems out there that tend to have more depth and emotion to them than the big AAA games that are just

Its nice when the idea of making sure hair is perfect, and boob physics are perfect, is placed second to a story that flows.

Wild Arms brings story to the game.  Yes, I will admit it.  The translation can be a bitch.  I expect that due to when the game was made and the fact that localization has gotten better over the recent years.  Sometimes there are weird parts of the story that just make it a little chuggy with how it reads out, but it still for the most part ties things together.  This is more than what I can say with FFXIII.  I had problems with the flow of that cause it seemed things were just thrown in suddenly near the end.  Alas, that is different.

Sometimes an RPG can try to show multiple characters all being the main protagonist, however ends up focusing on a single or pair of persons.  You see this a lot of with Final Fantasy games.  Its something that can be hard because people tend to like a certain character for elements that are out of the control of the developers.  Its ok.  Wild Arms though makes you think that Rudy is the main character.  Then you work with Jack a lot and his quest for "Absolute Power".  Then to Cecelia and her overcoming her royalty pains.  You find that in the end of the game, there really is not one main character.  They went into this thing as a team, and you see that in the end.  Switching between characters to use the different tools that they have helps to keep this feeling.  Sometimes I would like to have Rudy on the screen.  Other times I liked to have Jack on there.  I never found myself sticking with one character all the time.  Hell I tried to keep Rudy as the highest level character, but in the end they ended up only being a couple 1000 xp away from each other (which isn't bad when I finished the game at level 58ish).  The fact that Rudy really does not speak at all throughout the game, however you discover his story and the importance of him being a dream chaser; all of this really draws you in.


One of my favorite images from the game



Wild Arms has lead me to want to discover other RPG games, like the "Tales of" series (I have one already in the my collection).  I want to break free from just FF and Kingdom Hearts.  Experience something new.  I want to play Wild Arms 2.  This is something important in a game.  You should enjoy a medium in a way that makes you want to explore new things about your tastes and what you like.  If we only stick to what we know and enjoy, what the big companies say we should like, then we will all be on the same route without ever enjoying the beauty that is off the beaten path.  I am going to talk more about this later I think.  It deserves its own posting.


Wild Arms.  Definitely a great game to play.  Having it on the PSP or Vita cranks up the enjoyment in my book.  Its easy to start up anywhere, play a little, and then do stand by.  Plus it doesn't kill your battery.



So go and get it.

Now.


I am watching you!!!

You are not going to get it!!

Here is the link to the PSN page

Use it.  And then tell me what you think

Total time: ~39.5 hours

Friday, August 16, 2013

This Is Not a Version Update Part 2: Flinging My Arms

Many games being played at the same time.  This can sometimes lead to disaster.  Unless you are able to organize your time and priorities properly.  Somehow with my crazy life and work I am succeeding in this crazy feat.

At the moment I am playing the following games:














There are more to these, however I have been playing these the most so I will only speak of these to save time.  I am going to split each game up into its own post so as not to make this too long.


Wild Arms:
Well, at the current speed that I was playing the game when I was going to post these updates, I was not really close to beating the game.  Damnit though do things change.  

I finally completed the game last night, and knowing that I needed still write this post, I am doing this quick filler and will be inputting a link to the final review page (coming soon) once I finish it.  I will have more parts up too.

Here is the link

Sunday, August 11, 2013

This Is Not a Version Update Part 1: The Dream

Many games being played at the same time.  This can sometimes lead to disaster.  Unless you are able to organize your time and priorities properly.  Somehow with my crazy life and work I am succeeding in this crazy feat.

At the moment I am playing the following games:














There are more to these, however I have been playing these the most so I will only speak of these to save time.  I am going to split each game up into its own post so as not to make this too long.


Azure Dreams:
Reliving this game from when I first played it in middle school has been fun.  I first rented this game from my local Blockbuster (oh God, those were the days).  I was on a big Pokemon kick and I saw this game for Playstation.  It seemed similar to Pokemon so I decided to try it out.  I am glad that I did.

I kept playing it and playing it, returning it and then checking it out again.  I eventually bought a copy off a kid at school for 20.00 (a good deal now I believe).  After playing it for awhile I decided one day I would attach a gameshark to Azure Dreams to help me out.  The game became a little buggy and I was never able to play properly again.  To say I was pissed off is an understatement.

As the years went by I tried my copy of Azure Dreams on my PS2, which it worked for a little while but then started to glitch up on the opening cutscene.  Then when I got my PS3 I thought "THIS IS GOING TO BE IT".

I was so wrong.  Still with my PS3 I was unable to get through that damn cutscene glitching problem.  I tried cleaning the disc, doing all different things.  Alas nothing worked.

It was not until I finally got my emulator program running on my PC that I was able to do an image copy of the disc that I own to my computer that I finally was able to get through that damn glitch.  Since then I have been smooth sailing with the game.  So many memories are flooding back to me.

To sum up this game that maybe not a lot of people know about, your father dies and when you come of age you are allowed to climb up this tower that has 40 floors.  All floors are filled with monsters, with floors that change to random designs each playthrough.  You have to collect monster eggs and either sell them or hatch them to get monsters to fight with you.  Your level does not mean anything in the game.  You will pretty much always be weak unless you spend a hell of a lot of time leveling up your weapon.  The real strength is with your monsters.  The stronger they are the better your chances of survival are.  It takes many, many journeys into the tower to get just one monster levels up enough to be useful.  It takes more to do at least two.  You can also fuse monsters together to change their element and their magic, as well as give them hidden abilities.  Something for the true completion players.

The other thing you do is gather money to help rebuild the town (to benefit you and others), complete some quests, and to make girlfriends.  Many girlfriends.  Each girl requires different things you need to do to have them fall in love with you.  Once you make girlfriends (funny, in Japan they are your wives, however because the character is 15, you can't get married in the good ole USA at that age, they say) you can get some fan service and see them in their bikinis at the pool.  There is a secret girlfriend, however you won't know who that is until you conquer the tower.  OOOOHHHH  mystery.

I will admit that there are translation errors to the game.  Not surprising.  That the story is ok, but there is definite room for growth.  The fact that you can't enter the tower with more than 5 items is a pain in the ass, but the limitation provides for you to think ahead and take risks.  Things like these are maybe the reason why this is never Game of the Year material, however Azure Dreams is a great game to just play and have fun.  Its a nice "rare" gem of a game that is off the beaten path from the big AAA games.

I find myself with almost my first girlfriend (DO NOT LAUGH.  I AM HAPPILY MARRIED), and at least one monster that may be strong enough to take me all the way to the top, not including Kewne.  I currently find myself working on gathering supplies to fix up the town, but once I am ready to conquer the tower I will probably switch gears real quick.

I do believe that Azure Dreams deserves a remake, or at least a release on the PSN.  It would be real fun to play on a PSP or Vita, that is for sure.  Almost perfect for them in fact.


Monday, July 22, 2013

Goals Page Update 7/22/2013

I added goals for Azure Dreams to the goal page.  Just a simple update blog post

Sunday, July 21, 2013

Goals Page

I keep little lists on my desk, in my bag, my pants pockets, car, office, etc.  I write things I need to remember or plan to do on these things.  Most are for work or about patients, however those about gaming I always tend to lose.

I will be playing a game and a thought of what I want to accomplish pops into my head.  Maybe a quest or mission I want to complete.  Attain a certain level before pursuing the story more.  Stuff like that.  

Now for quests and all these are usually listed in the game so I can remember which ones I have to work on.  However my mind is a scattered mess, thus that relates to my game playing as well.  I like to do quests out of order, and this tends to me forgetting which ones I am on, and how far along I am on them.

Now we get to where I wanted to be.

I am going to be creating a new page titled "The Goals".

This page will have games as I play them and under each game I will include a to-do list of sorts for me to follow as well as all of you.  It just helps to organize things more and it might help shed a light to all of you on how my brain works.  I will mark off goals as I complete them on the list.

Thats really it.  I got nothing else at the moment.


Saturday, July 20, 2013

How the West was Played

Time for a good ole fashioned western.

Thats right.  Time for:

Cowboys:

Guns:
Desert:
Magic:

Wait.  Magic??

That doesn't make much sense?  How does a western have magic in it?

Well, if its Wild Arms, then there you go.
The Wild Arms series has been around since 1996, and has gone unnoticed by the major media here in America.  There have been multiple sequels to the game, as well as a remake of Wild Arms (known as Wild Arms: Alter Code F, which is on the list).

I like how it is an RPG that takes the normal standards of the genre and and tweaks them a little.

Moving around, each character has 3 "tools" that they can use to interact with their surroundings.  You have bombs, radar, Hanpan, grappling hook, lighter, etc.  These are not key items, or one time use things.  You can use them over and over again and they are needed to progress the story as you go along.  They don't give you any advantage either with battles.  Just there to help you move around.

With stats and battles, you still have HP and MP, STR, VIT, etc.  Those things are there as well.  However each character has specific skills.  Only one person, Cecilia, can use magic.  She doesn't learn magic as she gains levels.  You have to find crest graphs and then take them to magic stores and select which spells you want.  So there is a strategy element to that so you have to think how you will use all of your spells together, and not just rely on one main spell to go through each battle.  Jack can use MP, but he does so for sword attacks.  He learns these sword attacks, called "Fast Draws" through planned and random events in the game.  Then you have to keep using the fast draw in battle until you master it so you can get the action each time.  Rudy doesn't use magic, however he uses ARMS, which are really just guns.  There are different types of guns that do different things.  You can upgrade the ATK, the ACC, and even the capacity for each one separately, however once you run out of ammo for that weapon you are unable to use it until its refilled...for a fee of course.

All three characters then have things called Force Abilities.  As you attack, defend, get attacked in battle, your force bar builds.  You have 4 levels on the bar, corresponding with 4 actions per person.  You start off with 1 ability, then you get the second one once you are able to use guardians (more to come on that later).  You gain the others as you progress through the story as per other elements to the game.  Guardians are like summons with other RPG stables (Final Fantasy being one that comes to mind).  These are beings that control different elements to the world, and you equip the corresponding runes for each guardian.  Each rune will make changes to your stats as well.  Using the guardian ability, as well as any force ability, doesn't use MP.  That is the unique part.  It just uses the force bar.  This new variable makes for extra planning and benefits.  Things I enjoy in a good RPG.

Something else I like about Wild Arms is the flow of the game.  A lot of times RPG's can present you with a lot of choices to do at one time that don't have anything to do with the main storyline.  So you have the lulls in the game where you are spending hours and hours progressing through sidequests instead of working on progressing the main story.  I love sidequests, don't get me wrong.  But Wild Arms has you going along the main storyline at a good pace without much of a lull between things.  There are some sidequests, however they don't take hours to complete.  Everything revolves around progressing the main narrative to the story.  I am playing this game on my PSP and I like advancement like this in my handheld games.  Let me explore, but also let me get a since that I accomplished a lot between battery charges.

Weird to measure progression on a device in the time designation of "between battery charges".  For my PSP, that is usually about 3.5 hours for memory card based games (thats a pretty conservative estimate).  Less when I am playing through the UMD.  I tend to play my UMD's more when I am close to an outlet.  That way I won't freak if I start to get low on battery and I am, for instance, up in a plane.



Status update for me on Wild Arms, I am currently fighting along on the Ghost Ship.  I am maybe 25% of the way through.  Hard to really tell.  About 11 hours in as well.  I think if you want to try this game out you should.  Its pretty cheap on PSN, and I think worth the money.  You just have to keep in mind that the game was made in 1996, so the graphics are not as intense as they are nowadays.


Monday, July 8, 2013

Updates!!

I talked about updating the site yesterday, and in no time at all there have been some major revisions.

First up, the overall theme for the site.  I went with the dynamic theme to help cut down on the clutter that was on the page.  Yeah, the fish are gone, however things seem to have a much better flow to them.  It is a little cleaner as well.  My one gripe with things is the fact that it shows all of my posts on the front page.  I wish it only did one at a time, but the other themes that contained that concept didn't have as much of a straightforward appeal to them as I wanted.  So I will do some minor retooling of the site.  One thing that I might do as well is look up a free online class on basic html so then I know how to really work around with the interwebs.

Second, the List Page.  I went through and retyped every single game that I had on Backloggery to the page.  I had some games that never made them onto The List, as well as never made it onto the Backloggery.  Now things are matched up.  I moved FFXI off the list because it was a continuous played game, and I will have an update on that since I am pondering somethings with it and other MMORPG's.  With each game is its value based on what I could find on the internet/steam/PSN/what I paid for it.  This will work with the bank of credits that I will gain to buy new games.  I also have each game that I am currently playing highlighted in red so when going through the list you can find the games being worked on quicker.

My next task will to work on The Completed List.  I haven't updated this page with all of the games that I have been going through as of late.  I don't know if I will be able to find that list, so I might just take off those games, reset the accumulative time, and start from scratch.

Sunday, July 7, 2013

It's Been a Long Time Since I Saw You Around These Parts

Damnit.

It has been a long time since I have been around these parts.  By these parts I mean this blog and not where you are currently.  That would be a little sketchy and weird.  I swear I am not a stalker.

Work and Life get in the way of things that don't have to pay the bills.  Whenever it comes down to why people start blogs or websites and then abandon or step away for awhile that is the reason.  If this isn't their main source of income then they have to the primary job to pay the bills first.  Then when they have time that isn't dedicated to work, eating, sleeping, spending time with the spouse then they can work on the good ole blog.  That has been the case with me.  

I have been working two different jobs.  My primary one I had to travel with teams, cover special events, then set things up to end the school year with.  When I haven't been working then I have been at home helping around the house, spending time with my wife as she has had a hectic end of the year with getting things settled, and then sleeping.

The past two weeks however I have been away travelling.  I had my national conference for my profession in Las Vegas, so the wife and I flew out there after dropping the pup off at my mother's in NC.  After spending four days in Vegas we rented a car and drove from Nevada to Montana to spend about 3 days with my mother-in-law.  It took a 13 hour drive plus a quick stay over in a motel cause we were exhausted to get there, but we made it.  We had a wonderful time in Montana, especially seeing the mountain and going whitewater rafting down the Gallatin River, but then drove all the way back to Nevada on Monday to fly back to NC.  We drove through Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Montana both ways.  Was so beautiful.  I had to put down my PSP several times to just take pictures.  hahaha

We then got back to my mother's house and spent the rest of the week there just relaxing, catching up on sleep, and spending time with her and the rest of my family that is in the area.  We then came back home yesterday.  It has been a whirlwind for sure.  I think that everyone should try and go through those states in a car.  You really get to appreciate the beauty that is America when you do that.  Its just so breathtaking seeing expanses of green plains and huge mountains, some with snow caps still.  Here is just one of the pictures I was able to take:

MONTANA!!
I decided to sit down after getting back and really work on updating things today, while playing some games.  I have gotten many things accomplished over the past 2 months, and especially over our trip.  I mean, when you spend 24 hours in a car and you drive ~12 hours of that, you need something to do besides just talking and looking at everything around you (p.s. I love talking to my wife.  I was just saying I could talk and click buttons).

So in the past 2 months I have been able to Beat a couple of games.  Mass Effect, Mass Effect, 2, and then over my trip I Beat Parasite Eve 2.  My wife commented that I have been on a roll lately, and I didn't realize it until I sat down and checked my Backloggery that she was right.  I have been blowing through games and that makes me really happy.  After watching all the craziness that went down at E3, plus getting into the beta for FFXIV, I set my mind into overdrive to start getting through games.  I need to get things out of the way so I can justify purchases that will occur in the future.  KHIII, FFXIV, FFXV, a PS4, a Vita, a 3DS; there were a lot of things that I instantly put on my wishlist in my head.  However sitting on almost $1000 worth of unfinished games makes my conscience hurt when I want to buy more.  Plus doing a budget everyday/every month,  I can't validate making purchases on things that won't get completely used.

So I did some upgrading of things.  

First: I got all the games that I already owned on disc off of PSN if I could for my PSP (I had a gift card that really helped me).  This enables me to play more games on the go, or just not in front of a PC/TV.  

Second: I finally got my emulators going for PS and PS2.  I used the bios off my machines, and I only use the discs that I own to play.  This will help me play games when my PS3 is being used, or if the worst case scenario happens with it.  

Third: I am doing my best on not playing series back to back as best as possible.  Sometimes it can make things dragging if I did Parasite Eve, Parasite Eve 2, The Third Birthday.  I would just scream "GIVE ME SOMETHING MORE THAN AVA DAMNIT!!".  So for instance, I beat Parasite Eve 2, and now I am working on Wild Arms and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep on my PSP.  Once I get through KH, I wont' go straight to Chain of Memories.  I will probably move over to FF Tactics, or whatever.

Fourth: I am going to redo my "buying a new game" credit system.  I used to have it based on when I beat 5 games I will buy a new one.  That made sense at the time, but the changes I have planned will make it either harder or easier for me to get new games.  Hell, it could make it the best system.  The idea is to base the credit system not of the quantity of games beaten, but the value of the game.  So if I buy a game for $60 and beat the game, then I will put $60 in the "till" for me to use when I want to buy something new.  A lot of times I will buy a game new, but will work on another game first before starting it.  So I won't be getting lots of money in the till all of the time.  It will take some time to build up credit.  I could change it for new games as well and make it when I Beat a new game (that I know the price of) I only get 75% of the full price in the till. When I Complete a game, then I get 100% in the till.  Now games like Parsite Eve 2, which I have a disc for but I bought the PSN version, I will base it off the price that I bought it off of PSN, which I believe was 5.99.  When I have a game that I bought a long time ago but can't remember the price, then I will use ebay and/or amazon to find an average value to the game.  This value will then be used for the price of the game.

I plan on redoing the List and Completed List page, and I will include values to the games with each one.  Trilogy packs (like Mass Effect Trilogy) I will take the price of the game and then divide it by how many games are in pack.  I will also look into adding a Beaten List Page to go along with my Complete List page, but that will have to do with how things flow.

Fifth: I am taking some breaks to watch things on Hulu and Netflix so as to not burn myself out on my games.  It can take me sometime to figure out what I want to play just because I have so many damn choices.  Once I watch some queued episodes of whatever I have then I can concentrate on a specific entry.

Sixth: I started to do a Breath of Fire series play through on emulator.  I call it my BOFathon.  I won't always do this, however I found that when getting through my much older entries, something like this makes things a little fun.  So expect little many -athons in the future.  I will eventually need to come up with a good list of games for my extra-life campaign (please go and donate!!).

With all of these changes you can expect changes to the blog as well.  I am going to update the format.  Most likely the fishes will be going (I love those guy), but I want to try and clean up the pages some.

You can also expect for entries on the games that I mentioned on this blog to appear, plus other game entries as well.  I will add links in this post for when I make those entries.  I have a lot of drafts sitting in my posts waiting to be updated and worked on.  So don't think I am just sitting around and doing nothing.  

Monday, May 6, 2013

Arty Dragon

I have never played Dragon Fantasy.  Hell I don't even own it.  I have thought about buying it but that will have to wait (need to get through the list some).

So why am I talking about it on here??

It has to do with video games and them being art.

Over the many decades that video games have been around they have progressed from white dots on a black screen, to 16-bit, to the beginnings of the 3D images, to what we have now with almost complete realistic images of people and things.  Because of this the art of games has had to change with its advances to keep up.  This means gameplay/interaction, story/plot, and characters.  Story and characters are the most important change I believe because pong would not be that fun even in full 3D with surround sound.  You have to have something more.  Its plot and characters, the experience itself that drives evolution of the medium.  When there is no evolution of the medium, no betterment of the type of experience you have, then stagnation settles in and that is a killer.

Stagnation in the game industry happens here and there.  Small parts of the whole fail to do any form of progress. This to me usually is seen with game series and/or companies failing after being overly successful (you can see SE as one).  You can create a great product that people have never see before.  Something that makes huge rifts in the water.  Some good examples of this are Assassins Creed I and I, the entire FF series, Call of Duty.  Amazing games (I just tossed CoD in there.  I have never played it, nor do I think I ever will) that made instant classics of themselves and either changed or created the genres that they are in in ways that are still being felt.

However when you come to the most recent CoD games, ACIII, and FFXIII/XIII-2, that newness and revolutionary way of things has died down.  People are starting to doubt the series and the companies that make them.  Is this what they think the art is?  Is this where we want it to go??

NO!

We as gamers want something that is personal and deep.  Something that makes us tear up at the end (I hear Xenogears will do that).  Thus where Dragon Fantasy comes in.

Art is sometimes a memorial to a person.  A tribute to the life they led and how the artist wants to celebrate that life.  Now all of my info is based on what I have read from a Kotaku, a discussion they did on the Official Playstation Blogcast, and things that I have found on the internet.

One of the creators of the game, Adam Rippon, paid homage to his father through the main character of the first chapter of the game, Ogden.  Ogden is a washed-up former hero who had to get back into the game of saving the world.  However his sprite is designed to look like Adam's father, and that to me rocks.

Its a tribute in a game in a ways that I have never heard of before.  They do other tributes to other old school games that people have loved, and they themselves.  But they tied it all together using this representation of his father.  His dad getting back into the game.


Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion, but this is just a cool idea to me.  I love it.  And you can think I am mad.  You can think that I spent more time using this entry to talk about art and not Dragon Fantasy (and that might be true, but when I play it I will change that).  However I love this game.  Maybe I will just go ahead and buy it now.  YOU CAN'T STOP ME!!

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Down for the week

I was going to update this week, and I had half a post done. But I have been traveling for work a lot this week.

A hell of a lot.

So I am going to get the post I was working on done and posted for Wednesday. It will be a game conclusive post.


Thank you for hanging with me.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Gaming Together

When I was growing up I never played two player games that much.  I mean I played a lot games that had two, sometimes three, player options on them.  Secret of Mana is one.  In fact, that is an amazing game and most likely one of the greatest of all time (damn do they need a sequel to that).

I just chose to play games by myself cause I am a depressing loner (I swear I am not that emo).  I retract the depressing loner statement and add that I am just a tad introverted.  I liked to just hang out at home by myself at times.  No problems with that at all.


Nowadays I still play many games by myself, but I have a few that allow for more than one player to enjoy at one time.  A lot of these are on the Wii, or really any Nintendo platform.  Nintendo makes good multiplayer, non-shooting, games for people to enjoy with others in the living room.

Now I come to Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii.  My mother graciously got the game for me for Christmas and the wife and I started playing it about a month ago.  We haven't played too many games together (really, its probably under the amount of 5) and my wife loves the Mario series.  She is a huge fan of Super Mario 2 and 3.  She is the boss at Super Mario 3.

So the wife says that she wants to play Galaxy one day, and I say sure.  Its setup so that if you play with a second person, the first player does all the controls of Mario, and the second player is there mostly to help pick up star fragments, shoot them at enemies, and talk with you about things.  Knowing this I told her she should be the first player and I would be second player.  We started off with this setup and were doing great until having to fight the prequel boss.  Its really hard to keep Mario moving and the world be on a 3D planet that moves around.  Makes my damn head hurt a lot.

So we realized that maybe we should change things up and have me "drive" the adventure and the wife would man the co-pilot.  The game became a lot more fun.

From inappropriate comments about shooting stars at certain things mouths (plus their reaction/enjoyment of a tasty treat for them), to figuring out how to get through different obstacles, to just staying up later than we normally do because we are enjoying the moment with each other.  All of it is amazing.  I love playing games with my wife.  I found it funny that the first time we went a couple of days without playing she texted me to say that she was really hoping to play tonight.  We have kicked major ass and are at level 3.1.

Don't get me wrong.  Its not a secret that a lot of male gamers would love to be in a relationship with someone who plays games with them.  Who appreciates them as much as them.  I have for years wanted my wife to do that.  But now, just playing the game together I am discovered that I am glad she isn't as much of a gamer as me.

I am not as hardcore a gamer as others, but I do play frequently.  I also know my information and can hold up pretty well with others.  So thinking that I want that special someone in my life to be at that same level is a little frightening.  Yeah it would be cool at first, but then we would probably spend a lot of time just playing games and competing between each other without going out and enjoying new things.  My wife loves to run. Hell she ran a marathon.  She has gotten me to run a little here and there, something that I would not have probably done on my own.  I have experienced art museums, owning a kickass dog, and lots of other things that I might not do by myself, or by having someone who is just like me.

Now my wife just playing Mario games, and really small mobile puzzle games is great.  Because when she sits down and watches me play games, she sometimes asks questions about the story or what is happening.  She can get into things or just sit and read, knowing that I am getting some enjoyment in my moments of just escaping.  A little game therapy.  However its when she plays games on a console that my eyes light up.  She has this fascination with the games.  So much fun playing and enjoying them that I sometimes end up thinking "when was the last time I had this kind of exposure to a game where I was so in touch with things"?  I am not saying my wife is a little child, however she plays things with the enthusiasm of a person coming to it for the first time.  I love that.

This is something that I wouldn't have if I married a gamer.  This is something that would be rare if nonexistent if I married someone who played games as much as me.  I would not get this inspiration to look more into the games I choose if I didn't see the face my wife makes when playing Mario.  I love my wife, and this is something that makes me love her even more.  

Friday, April 12, 2013

Out of Order and I know it

For those of you who follow this blog as well as look at my Backloggery page you might see that I am posting about games that I finished months ago.  I am not really talking about the games that I am currently playing.

Well this is part of what happens when you don't tend to your blog for awhile.  /slapface

I stopped blogging because of real life occurring, as well as I didn't have the drive to sit down and type things out.  I did my best to try and scribble out notes once I finished a game, however I stopped doing that mostly because its hard for my to type up what I write and not thinking I am a blooming moron.

Out of the games that I have finished I will only post on the few that I know I could easily type up.  That I know are worth the conversation.  I might skip over some, or mention them in a short post, but I will get through those games.

I will also post on my current gaming experiences as they happen.  I might dedicate one day to games I have Beaten/Completed, and then the other day of the week that I post to my current activities.

I think that sounds like a good plan.

Yeah, a damn good plan.

Thursday, April 11, 2013

Dissidia Final Fantasy...... Disappointment

from www.neoseeker.com
If Squall in the above picture represents Dissidia Final Fantasy, I am Rinoa (I swear I don't secretly want to be a woman).

Why am I sad??  It clearly isn't because the game is over.

Noooooo.

I am sad because the game really did not start for me.  I was so horribly disappointed with the product that SE made that I want to hit myself repeatedly.  Just enough so a smile will spread over my face before I succumb to the coma.

Then in said coma I will compose the greatness that could have occurred in Dissidia properly so maybe my happiness will wake me up so I can get on with this speck of life on a floating rotating rock in the grand universe.

Wow.

That was weirdly, depressing and deep.

Years ago I played a game called Ehrgeiz for Playstation.  It was advertised that you could play as Sephiroth, as well as other characters from FFVII.  I was obsessed with FFVII at the time so I thought this was going to be an amazing game.  Going to be the greatest of great ever.

I was disappointed.  I just never could get into the game that much.  I don't know what it was.  Maybe I just didn't understand the story that well.  Maybe fighting games are not my thing.  Who knows.  All I know is that when I saw Dissidia Final Fantasy I thought that this was going to blow Ehrgeiz out of the water.  I was going to love it.  I had to love it since it had all the main heros and villians from each FF game.

It didn't live up to the hype that I placed on it.  And that pissed me off.

There are four game options to the game.

The first is the lackluster arcade mode.  You have to fight off enemies one after another.  I did this when I wanted to be distracted for 5 minutes.  It was not enjoyable to me at all.  I like in Tekken how they did this option, and other fighting games.  But it was so nerfed in Dissidia that I couldn't take it.

The second was the multiplayer.  I never used the multiplayer.  My PSP has issues with getting online, plus I just didn't feel much of a draw to play with others.  I am such a loner.  Nah.  I just don't play a lot of multiplayer games.

The third was the Quick Battle system.  I actually played this a lot.  I enjoyed this system a lot.  Basically, you would select a character to play as (good or bad), and then any other character (good or bad) fight against, any stage to fight in, and then their strength.  I used this to level up my characters so I could get through the story easier.  That was the main reason at first.  But then it got addicting when I would build up my little chocobo level thingy, get lots of gil and ap, and really want revenge on that damn villain for kicking my ass over and over again.  This is what should have been emphasized more.  I don't know how but damnit make it so.

The fourth system to talk about is the Story mode.  The meat and potatoes of the game.  Basically take the quick battle system, put a story and journey behind things and you have the story mode.  You went through the 10 heroes stories individually, playing as each.  You would unlock rewards, equipment, summons, level skills, all of that.  The story though was what got me.

Somehow everyone has amnesia, but they are chasing after their respective enemy.  Well, the heroes have amnesia.  The villains now the past it seems.  For the most part they would make things way too hokey, too kid like that I couldn't digest it.  You take characters like Cloud, Squall, Zidane, and Tidus and make them just seem off from how we remember them from their respective FF game.  You would take characters from FFII-FFV and add more to them as a character that look like you trying.  Hell, they took the Warrior of Light from FFI and gave him dialogue and a story.  He was my favorite character in this car wreck of pixels. I think it was because he didn't have so much a back story as everyone else.  It just worked.

Once you get through the 10 storylines, you then get several additional storylines that follow additional events.

THIS IS WHERE THE GAME SHOULD HAVE STARTED.

I liked how raw and dark the story was.  How downright depressing it sometimes could get.  This is what I wanted.  I spent hours going through happytown to get to something that was equal to a FF game.

And then it was over.

Final CS plays (I really like the final CS.  In fact all of the cutscenes were beautiful) and the game is over.

Now there are some extra parts that I could play through, however I didn't have it in for me.  This was a title that I quickly realized that I was going to put down once I Beat it.

Would I recommend it to people to play?

Ehhh.  If you want to spend the discounted money on it, then do it up.  Don't worry about searching for it though.  Its not that desperate of a situation to play the game I would say.

In the end, I might pick this up to work on getting a Complete when I do Extra-Life in November.  Who knows.




New Post

I know its a little late, but I was slammed with work all day yesterday.

But wait for it..........


New post coming in less than a minute.



JUMP FOR JOY NOW

Sunday, April 7, 2013

End of a Legacy (concerning Italians)

I was finally able to sit down and play Assassin's Creed: Revelations (ACR).

This game has has been sitting in my house screaming to be played for quite awhile now.  With me having most of my mornings open now that my wonderful wife is working in the school system, I get to spend most of my playing time during the early hours of the day.  By early I mean between 8am to 1pm.  I run into the problem of not wanting to stop when it is getting near time to go to work. I have somethings I need to work on with that.  Can't always show up to work late.  Or can I???

ACII was the first of the series that I played, introducing me to Ezio.  After playing ACB, ACR continues the development and gives a well deserved ending to Ezio's story.  Ezio started as a pompous ass (typical Italian...I kid) to me, but I did not plan on him growing on me the way that he did.  I don't know when it started with the three games, but it happened.  I felt very upset about my journey with him ending.  Just watching him pass the reign onto the next ancestor actually made me choke up.  Removing his blades like turning the light off at work for the last time.  It got me just a little.





After pouring my feelings out, lets talk about my thoughts on the game.  The setting is Constantinople.  Ezio is  in search of keys that will unlock a library vault that was built by Altair Ibn-La'Ahad (the Assassin from AC).  Without going into too much detail, Templars are involved as you journey to find the five keys.  I mean Templars are always involved.  Its kid of a mainstay thing to the series.  If you have never realized that then I beg you just hit yourself until the concussion forms.

Other tie-ins are that you finally see the future wife of Ezio.  Yeah, had has always been a ladies man, but its nice to see him settle down with someone.  Or maybe he doesn't.  There is always the chance of the dead-beat dad thing.

I am trying my best to not go into too much detail of the game.  I believe that spoilers are not an issue after 6 months for a game, yet I don't want people to worry about that here.

Knowing what I have said about Ezio, ACR also looks into the history of Desmond.  You learn a lot about Desmond's history and why he left the Assassin order.  You learn more about Subject 16.  And as I already said you finish the Ezio arc.  I mean come one.  That right there is enough reason to play this game.

Things can't always be sunshine and rainbows.  There are issues with the game, but almost all games have issues.  As with with the AC series there are always little bugs and glitches, especially seen with the amazing graphics and scenery that they put into the game.  Sometimes you might have a big brown or grey cone through the screen, but you honestly have to breathe and take into account that sometimes small mistakes get through on the enormous masterpiece.  All of these, plus some freezing issues here and there are some of the reasons why I wait to buy games so that patches can be put out.  Big games like these will always have patches.  They are not bad at all.  Hell, I consider them a good thing since it shows that the company cares enough about the product to fix things.

The side quests were easy for me.  They are pretty much the same as the last two games.  Build stores.  Claim territory.  Recruit.  Wash.  Rinse.  Repeat.  its a code that I have figured out and was able to monopolize and establish near full control within the first few sequences.  Damn OCD.  It is something I always do.

I also had issues with the Ottomans and the Byzantines.  I know the overall history of the area.  Its not foreign to me.  My problem is that unless you read all of the data entries in the game, even multiple times, their role in the game is confusing.  I don't know why and I just can't place my finger on why its so confusing.  It befuddles me.

At the end of it all I am upset this is Ezio's end.  I hope (however I have already beaten AC3) that the next protagonist, Connor, will be worth not ending the story of Desmond with Ezio.

I did beat AC:R, and I will revisit this later on, probably during Extra-Life to try my hand at a Complete.

Damn do I suck

Seriously.

I suck.

I make all these plans to post on here.

I garner your attention and love, and then I smash it because I am unable to deliver.

WHY DEAR GOD DO I DO SUCH A THING!?!?!?!?!

Well I am going to change that.

I have an entry that I have been working on for the better part of 5 weeks that I will finish and post today.  You will then get an entry on Wednesday.  I guarantee.

I will then work on updating The List page so that it shows the current games I am working on.


Thank you!!

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Update

I have missed my Wednesday and Sunday post (well, sort of for Sunday, but I will not cop out).

I have been busy and tired from work.  I had to do a 18 hour trip for work on a bus with a basketball team, so I have been recovering from that still.

I have 1.5 posts written to be posted.  I will get one up tomorrow, and then post one again on Wednesday to make up for things.



Thanks for support all!!

Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Demo Time Baby!

As I have gotten older I have found myself playing more demos for games.  I cannot recall playing a lot of them when I was younger, but now I look at my PS3 and Steam and there are at least 15 waiting for me.  I will most likely purchase maybe one if any, but it is my downloading of them that startles me.

I was talking with We$$ the other night and we were talking about some demos that I had.  I told him that I had written up a quick draft of this post and we had a nice conversation about how things have changed since we were young in the world of demos.

I don't know why in the past I did not partake in them.  Maybe it was because I was young and did not want to waste time on something that was not the full product.  Thinking that if I liked it great, and if not I wasted my time.

I hate wasting my time.

I think another part was I felt games that were not going to make it big went out on demos.  These were inferior products.

I think about it and I also realize that availability played a big role in things as well.  When we were young the internet was only a small fledgling of what it is now.  Downloading grainy porn pictures was a 30 minutes process for just getting one.  Dial up was king.  The idea of sending music, or even videos, over the internet to someone else was there, but most of us didn't pay too much to the notion.  We were happy with our fuzzy, low resolution pictures.

We$$ reminded me that it used to be that demos only came in gaming magazines.  You would get your issue for that month, and in the middle of the magazine, or in the sealed bag that contained the issue, there would be a disc (I cannot remember any demos for cartridge games, correct me if I am wrong) that you could put in your PC/PS and that was that month's demo.  I didn't really buy any of the gaming magazines.  I got my info through word of mouth and made my gaming purchase decisions based on company that made it, series it was in, genre, and the box art.

It was hard to get demos this way at home.  Yeah you could go to the store and play the game when it was at the kiosk, yet you always ran the risk of some little jackass hogging all the time in this mortal realm playing the game on an infinite loop.  I do remember FFVII being on a full game play at a MediaPlay back in the day that I played at.  In fact, I now remember a lot of full games that one could play.

Anyways, back to the point at hand.  All of this has lead me to talk about just finishing the Journey demo.  Yeah, I am quite late to the Journey game (DON'T START SINGING!!).  The game is absolutely beautiful. Simply amazing.
From thatgamecompany.com
I mean really, look at that screenshot.  That just blows me away.

The wordless story as you adventure alone with the seldom help of a mute stranger, who is someone in real life, is such an appealing, grand idea.  You get to interact with others without having to worry about being shy or taken aback by talking with them.  There is no judging in this realm.

Maybe because of money or some other reason I did not pick this game up.  I have heard about it a lot even before the release.  Even then it seemed appealing to me.  I just did not take the bait of it.  Part of me wants to now.  Amazing how a short, maybe 20 minute demo will do that.

I have other demos on my queue waiting for me to get to them.  Some I will, some I will not.  I think my outlook on them now is that I hope demos really start to kick some ass.  Start bringing in a lot more people to games.  Maybe I was distracted by one amazing one in a haystack filled with crap, but it only takes one to make you want to experience more of them.

It only takes one of make you use it as a viable way to purchase new games.

So here is to good demos.  May they bring good companies more sales.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Extra Life

I may have talked a little about this in the past, but I have decided that I am going to participate in the Extra-Life charity event.

For direct information on it, you can click here.

Extra-Life (EL) is a charity event that was started in 2008.  The Sarcastic Gamer Community helped a young lady named Victoria Enmon in her fight against Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia by sending her video games and gifts to help her with her stay in the hospital.  She tragically died in January 2008.  The Sarcastic Gamer Community however decided to put on a 24 hour gaming marathon that would raise money for the Children's Miracle Network hospital Victoria was at.  Over 2 years they raised $302,000 with all of the money going to the hospital.
-all of this information, and more is found here

EL last year raised ~2.2 million dollars to help the Children's Miracle Network (CMN) Hospitals.  Thats an amazing amount.

I heard about this event the day it happened last year, and said I would take part.  Here in Savannah, GA we have the Backus Children's Hospital which is the only one within a very large area.  I am currently working on getting more firm details about Backus Children's, however I know only what I have experienced by growing up in this community, and working for Memorial University Medical Center which is what Backus is affiliated with.

This is an amazing center that we are very fortunate to have in this community.  Thousands of children every year are better because of Backus Children's Hospital, and hundreds of thousands at least for the entire CMN community.  Finding out how I can give to this wonderful cause filled me with so much excitement.  Cue sentiment.

So the question is how does this work?

Its simple.  On November 2, 2013 I will be participating in a 24 hour gaming marathon.  Starting at 8am and going until 8am on November 3, I will play games nonstop.  Everything on my PC I will be able to livestream at my site.  I am going to work on getting the needed supplies to try and livestream my stuff on the Wii and PS3.  Anything handheld though will be problematic.  I know there are ways out there to broadcast it, but I don't know if I want to get the supplies for that since I haven't done too much livestreaming lately.  I know I would do a lot more if I could hook my consoles up, but my handhelds I usually play on the couch or just resting somewhere.  Even on the road.  That will just complicate matters for me.  I hate complication.

So I am going to play games for 24 hours.  Great.  Now here is where you all come in.  You can donate money to my cause @ my extra-life fundraising page.  I have a message up for all those interested and will work on updating it more and more as time goes on.  To donate, just click on the SUPPORT ME! button.  You can pledge as much or as little money as you want.  Extra-life has this thing where you can say to pledge $24, which works out to be $1 per hour that I play.  Do however you want.  My goal is $2000 and I am going to work my butt off to get that.  These kids deserve all the money that I can raise for them.  I am going to toss my own money into this as well to help things along too.

Oh, and your entire donation is tax-deductible.  Thats good for all you line item tax return people.

I will be adding a link to the site so you can always go to the page and donate without having to find this particular blog post.

So please join with me to help raise money to fight the evil villains that attack children: sickness, disease, cancer.  All of it.  Cause I will be damned if things will get worse for them on my watch.

Its time to stand up, put your credits in, and help make sure that all kids get to hit continue cause we got them extra lives.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

My Plan From Now On

I am going to redo some of my rules for the blog.

I am going to try and do at least 1 post a week, no more than 2.

It has been quite daunting for me to try and come up with something everyday.  I have ideas that float around my head and I am starting to write them down.  From those notes I will make entries and I will post them up.  Hopefully I can make a back log of entries that I can set to auto upload when I need to.

I am going to promise that posts will either be on Wednesdays and/or Sundays.  This week there might be one posted between those two dates, but we will see.  

I thank everyone that has been sticking around to read what I put on here.  Maybe all I get is bots, maybe all I get is silent people.

To all of you I say Thank You.


And to the bots I say "I humbly accept our new overlords"

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Reading...its not a game

One of the things that I have been doing a lot lately is reading.

Its an ancient art that requires one to look at symbols that relate to a language that you are usually proficient in.  When these symbols are arranged in predetermined ways it makes sense to the person translating them.  You can use these symbols as a way to tell a story to others.

In other words, its like playing a game, but instead its on paper (or e-reader) and your i/o device is turning the page.


I only jest at those young people who don't take it seriously.

A couple of months ago I started to get back into reading.  I read all of the Harry Potter books a couple of years ago and I really liked them.  I am someone though who doesn't like to re-read things however since I can remember the story and it nerves me to the point that I feel like I am wasting my time since I know what happens already.

I had just watched all the Star Wars Movies on Blu-ray with my wife since she had never seen any of them before (its a long story) and I had started to think about all the books and stories that are in the Expanded Universe.  How cool it would be to look into those stories.

It was this same thinking that led me to watch the all of the Stargate series.  I love Stargate and I thought after seeing it when I was a kid "Wow.  I wonder if we will ever get more movies that look at other worlds.  Cause there are a lot of possibilities".  Oh how right I was.

As a side note, please go watch all of Stargate SG-1, Atlantis, and Stargate Universe (SGU is amazing and they need to bring that back ASAP).  You can buy all the DVD's online, or you can watch them on Hulu or Netflix.  Its worth it in my opinion.


So back to the whole reading thing.  So I asked my buddy Brian about which books to read since he is an avid Star Wars fan.  He led me to the Thrawn Trilogy.

BAM!

Read all three of them and I loved them.  I was instantly hooked.

I immediately asked him for more recommendations and he said I should go to the X-Wing series.

So now that I am 7 books into the X-Wing series, and have spent ~$80 on all the books.  I spend a lot of my quick free time reading them.  Especially at night when I can't sleep but I am in bed but don't wont the bright light from my PSP or DS to wake my wife in bed.  Just laying there and reading them on my iPad helps to relax me and take me on these fantastic adventures that have been written.  It helps my mind to simmer down and relax and I usually end up falling asleep.  Not because I am bored but because I am content.

Sometimes I might talk about my reading adventures on here just to break up some of the more monotonous game updates when nothing big has really happened.

Below you can find the titles of the books that I have read, in case you are interested:
Thrawn Trilogy:
Star Wars: Heir to the Empire
Star Wars: Dark Force Rising
Star Wars: The Last Command

Star Wars: X-Wing Series:
Rogue Squadron
Wedge's Gamble
The Krytos Trap
The Bacta War
Wraith Squadron
Iron Fist
Solo Command
Isard's Revenge (I have yet to read)
Starfighters of Adumar (I have yet to read)

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Update on my whereabouts

Damnit I did it again.

I have been gone.

Well.  I have been absent is the best way to describe things.


My last post was on December 18th.  So I think I should update things since around that time.

First, at the beginning of December my wonderful wife finally got a job in the school system here.  It is something that has been a longtime coming.  For 4 years now she has been working her butt off and got the recognition that she deserves.
Now with this we had to figure out our schedules since she wouldn't be at home to look after the pup.  So I got used to being up every morning and taking the dog on amazing walks, plus having to deal with work.

Second, because she suddenly got a job in December I still had to work all the extra shifts in the mornings and weekends that I had already signed up for.  Since I had been doing a lot of part time work to help cover things at home while we figured out things with our jobs, I would sign up for work the month beforehand.  So I had a lot of days that I was working.  I did so much thought that I was exhausted and getting burned out on a lot of things.

Third, my workload with my regular job was picking up with the end of season things for winter sports coming up, plus having to get things ready for the spring season.  I was just going a million miles a minute for a long time.

Combine all of that, plus the fact that I still have been going strong through January with work, I have been just trying to catch up with rest.

I have had a lot of my mornings to myself and thats when I get a lot of my gaming done.  Don't worry.  I got through Assassins Creed: Revelations this month, which I am excited about.  I will be working on that review soon.

I also have some other announcements as well.  Got some charity work that I am going to work on, and some other updates as well.

The next two days I am doing testing in my office all day long.  The problem is it takes very little time to do the testing, but the periods of research are sporadic.  This leads to much downtime.  I will easily get all of my other paperwork done, but I plan to spend time updating this here blog, plus playing some PSP games.

Stay tuned for some fun