Saturday, February 25, 2006

 

Zelda SNES Commercial (Japan)

This is a video of a real actual Zelda commercial that was on TV in Japan. Why don't we get awesome stuff like that in the US?

Friday, February 24, 2006

 

No Fallout 3 Anytime Soon

I have been reading a few web sites, and learned that Fallout 3 is not going to be shown at E3. For those that don't know, the Fallout series is one of the best role-playing game series that has ever been made. Developed by Interplay's internal studio, Black Isle Games, Fallout 1 and 2 were exceptional RPGs that allowed the player unprecedented freedom of action. What you chose to do in the game had an impact on the story, and how you chose to develop your character made the games play out in very different ways. And the post-apocalyptic setting was done with such style and flavor that one couldn't help but love it. I heart Pip-Boy.

Anyway, so Interplay went kaput and so did any hopes of another sequel (after the much maligned, but still fun Fallout Tactics, a squad-based tactical strategy game that sadly didn't have the original series' style or open-endedness). That is, until Bethesda aquired the rights to the Fallout name and setting, and sometime in 2004 began production of Fallout 3. No one really knows what changes Bethesda is making to the Fallout franchise with this iteration, but based on the developers discussions the game is extremely important to them, and they are taking their time with it, much like Oblivion.

Since Fallout 3 will not be shown at E3, we can pretty much rule-out a release in 2006 and probably early 2007. I guess fall 2007 is about the earliest we could hope to see it. Here's hoping that it will be worth the extremely long wait!

Thursday, February 23, 2006

 

Finished: Final Fantasy

Finished the first game in Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls, the original fantasy in a great RPG series. It was a pretty fun 30 hours of entertainment. The story is pretty thin, really, but it was fun exploring. The endless random combats got in the way of fun a few times. I spent a lot of time playing the game in front of the TV watching superhero cartoons on our DVR, and I'd glance at the game to give new combat orders occasionally. I'm sure if I had paid more attention to the game, I could have finished it a lot quicker.

Final Fantasy is the easiest game in the series that I have played so far. I never really went looking to level up just to level up. I did very little exploring that wasn't motivated by some goal. But the goals in the game are not entirely clear all of the time. It is extremely important to talk to people in the towns, that gives a lot of clues, but even then it isn't always clear. The couple of times I had to look at a walkthrough, it was because I was confused about what the goals were.

By the end of the game my characters were level 85. The Monk (evolved to Master) was the weakest character throughout the game, but at the very end of the game I finally found a new kick ass katana that he could use, and he started dealing out the most damage (by far) of any of my characters. That was helpful in the final boss battle, but I'm not sure it was really worth having to put up with his poor performance for the first 29 hours.

The Red Mage/Wizard is a pretty decent character, I could see it possible to play the game with a party of four Red Mages. They have very good melee skills, for when you're running low on mana, and can do most of the black and white spells. They can't use that great of armor, but you would just have to spend a lot of your money on potions and heal up after battles. The lack of some of the most powerful white and black spells might become a problem in the latter part of the game, but maybe not. A hasted Red Mage with an excellent sword can dish out a lot of melee. Most of the good swords in the game were weildable by the Red Mage/Wizard.

I'd still recommend the 2 Warriors, Black and White mages party for a starter. I haven't tried the Thief tho, it might be better than the Monk. Even by the end of the game I'd only killed 75% of the monster types. I am not sure where those other critters are. But it would be fun to explore and try and find and kill them all. Some day I might replay the game using a party of Red Mages and try and kill every critter. The Bestiary shows you how many you've killed of each kind and their stats and a picture. It's like Pokemon! Gotta Kill 'Em All!!

I'm not going to start Final Fantasy II for a while, I'll give myself a little break from FF and try some other type of game for a while. But I'll definitely pick it up in a few weeks or so.

Final Score 7.5/10

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

 

Now Playing: Final Fantasy

I'm about halfway through Final Fantasy for the GBA playing on my DS. This is part one of the dual-game cart, Final Fantasy I & II: Dawn of Souls. This game is old school RPGing and it's great. The plot for the game is pretty thin, but it's still got that FF charm. So far I'd give this game an 8/10, if you have a GBA or DS and like RPGs, get it.

If you decide to play this, my recommendation is to take 2 warriors, a black mage, and a white mage. I have 1 warrior, 1 monk, 1 red mage, and 1 white mage. The red mage is pretty good, sort of all-purpose mage that isn't that great at magic, but can also dish out a lot of damage in melee. But she can't do all of the spells and in the later game I'm noticing this to be a problem since I'm blocked from most of the better level 6+ spells. The monk is worthless. Even after upgrading to Master that character is by far the weakest. I hope I find some gear or something to improve him, the thing is, he's still using mostly the same gear he had since like level 8 or 10 and we're in our mid-50's now.

Monday, February 20, 2006

 

Evil Asshats

If there was ever any doubt that the EA actually stands for Evil Asshats instead of Electronic Arts, I think this news from TechDirt removes all doubt.

From TechDirt:
If you decide to play [Fight Night Round 3 for PSP] online, it asks you to go through a registration process, and after that tells you that if you don't want the company to send your info to ESPN and other marketers, you need to pay $2. EA basically is saying that the online version costs $2, but that ESPN will pay that subscription fee for you... if you turn over your info to them.

That's pretty fucking weak. If I had a PSP (I don't), and if I were interested in Fight Night 3 (I'm not), I'd definitely use fake info. I wonder how good their info is going to be? What total tossers.

 

Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny

The internets needs more stuff like the Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny. This rocks. Follow the links from the lyrics page to download the mp3 version of the song. You know you love it. Found some other cool flash short-films or such? Let us know!

Saturday, February 04, 2006

 

Couple of Reviews

A couple of reviews of mine were posted on Game Chronicles. The first is a review of a strategy game, Cuban Missile Crisis: The Aftermath. I give it 5.2 out of 10. Pretty much avoid unless the subject matter is really compelling to you. It mixes turn-based strategic level game which was pretty cool with a crappy and frustrating RTS battle mode.

The other review is for a great Playstation 2 old school RPG, Wild Arms: Alter Code F. This is a remake of the original Playstation Wild Arms game, and it's a good one. Great story, very fun gameplay, if you like console RPG games definitely this is worth a look. I gave it 8.8 out of 10.

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