Save Point - 10/26/09

I actually got a good chunk of gaming in this week. Sure most of that was spent playing Borderlands, but I did get a few other things done:

• Borderlands is everything I was hoping for. I'm level 22 and still having a blast; as long as there is a friend around to play it with. For me it really loses some of it's charm when I'm playing alone, so if no-one is around I move on to something else. Fortunately my buddy Rocky has been playing it as much as I have, so I haven't had too much trouble grouping up.
• Gameroom2.0 is coming along. This weekend I added another shelf, moved some shelving around, and started placing some of the systems. I'm debating the secondary stand I have for the older systems. It's just big enough for what I have now, with no room for expansion. If my A/V switch is long enough I may look for a larger cabinet. I'm also looking for a few things for the walls. If anyone has any suggestions leave me a comment.
• Dragon Quest IX was played a bit yesterday. I had to do a little work on the characters, which is why I pushed off playing it for a while. Since I'm done setting them up I can get back to the main quest; just in time for Monday night TV! (And an post on DQIX is coming soon... I didn't forget)
  
• Tales of Vesperia popped in my 360 last night. I've been reading a lot about the tales series over the past few weeks because of a movie based on ToV, and the next game is due out soon. ToV also arrived in the mail this week. So last night I decided to check it out. It reminded me of my love/hate relationship with the Tales series. I absolutely love the artwork of the series, and the stories have been fun (if predictable) with what I've played so far. However, I hate the combat system. It's not that it's bad, I just don't like action RPG's (mainly because I'm not very good at them). The one thing that set ToV apart was how beautiful the game looked. I'll have definitly get to a playthrough at some point. Fortunately, I noticed there is an "easy" setting for the combat.
• Mass Effect was in my console for a while yesterday. I've been talking about beating this game for some time. The problem is there are just too many games on my list right now. ME's FPS combat system is normally what bumps it from my 360 as I'm looking for something a bit more relaxing at the end of the day. This week I'm determined to finish it off as Dragon Age Origins will be arriving in a week, and I'd like to beat one Bioware game before moving on to the next.
  
• Shadow Complex; I've been putting this game off for a while because I found myself stuck. I just couldn't get past the part I was stuck in. However I was showing off the game to a buddy this weekend, and sure enough I passed this point... with about 60 life left. Still, I've gotten past that point once, so I'll have to get back to exploring soon.

That's about it for this past week. Hopefully this week will be highly productive. I'd love to have some reviews of games I was able to finish...

Borderlands: First Impressions

Initial thoughts after playing the game: it's a ton of fun, but the appeal is definitely multiplayer. I wouldn't want to play it alone, and it's obviously not set up to be played alone. Finding new weapons has the diablo weapon drop feel. What look like two similar weapons are actually quite different. For instance I picked up a new pistol which didn't seem much better than the one I was using... until I noticed it had a larger clip and higher rate of fire. The new pistol turned out to be a machine pistol. Later I had a choice for either more damage from one shot (a six-shooter) or a higher rate of fire (better machine pistol). I went with the machine pistol, but this just scratches the surface of the gun system. We also discovered that the shields, and even the grenades are upgradeable. I attached a sticky modification to my grenades (a la halo), while Nukehavoc added a mod that caused his grenade to explode into smaller grenades!

As for characters, I saw the Hunter, Brick, and Siren in play. I unsually take the part of sniper in FPS's, so I chosed the hunter for my character. However, after playing through 10 levels I can really see the need for the solder. He's like the cleric of Borderlands. He can heal (with bullets!) and buff the party in various ways. That would have been very useful in several occasions last night where our hunters (we had three at some point) were popping in and out of cover waiting for our shields to recover. More importantly I discovered last night that the "favored guns" of each class is just those guns you can spend skill points for extra bonuses. The regular gun skills level up by use of said class of gun. Thus, any class can use a sniper rifle, the hunter just has a skills in his tree to further improve his use of pistols and sniper rifles.

Tonight I'll spend a bit of time building a Solder. I'm really looking forward to trying him out, as he's the only character I have not seen in action. Plus, I really want to shoot my teamates to see how they heal...

Save Point - 10/18/09

Welcome to another new feature here at the Fat Cat Inn, Items List. Here I'll talk about games I picked up for my collection, or other purchases I've made for the gameroom.

Recently I've been picking up some of the Playstation 2 games I missed while in college. There were a ton of great RPG's I would have loved to play, but back then money was a great concern. However, as the PS2 falls out of favor at Gamestop this has changed. Most of the PS2 games are less than $10 now, so I've been picking up many of these titles. Here's a quick rundown of what I've picked up in the past few weeks:

Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits, Arc the Lad: End of Darkness, Metal Saga, Shining Force Neo, Star Ocean: Till the end of Time, Suikoden III, Suikoden IV, Tales of Legendia, Wild Arms 3, Way of the Samurai, Xenosaga, and Xenosaga Episode II.

There are more games on my list, specifically Tales of the Abyss, Wild Arms IV and V, Shining Tears, and Shining Force EXA. Thus far I have been unable to find these titles, but I'll keep looking. I'm not the biggest fan of Gamestop's business practices. Specifically the sale of open games as new, and the fact that they set the prices of the used games market (really? only $5 off). Unfortunately there aren't many other options out there. Plus since they are trying to clear out their PS2 games I make out in this case.

I also picked up Chrono Trigger for my DS this weekend. I found it on clearance at a Walmart and since it had been on my list for some time I jumped at the chance. Speaking of DS games, there are also two I've been looking for lately: Izuna: the Unemployed Ninja and Dokapon Journey. Both are obscure titles I'd like to have, I just haven't had the chance to pick them up, and now they are a bit of a challenge to find.

While I'm looking, does anyone have any suggestions of games I should pick up for the collection? Now to get all these damn stickers off the boxes...

Unnamed Feature - 10/16/09

Welcome to the Unnamed Feature! That's not really the name, but I haven't come up with a good one yet. Basically this feature will be a periodic update of what I'm playing, news I found, or just other random things that come to me. It will also serve as an article I can write while no other stories come to mind.

What's Playing: As I detailed before, I had been playing Fable 2 a bit. That was until I found Shadow Complex which became an obsession for a few days. Unfortunately that obsession quickly ended as the action has passed my gaming skills. I admit, I am not the best gamer. I don't have the best hand/eye coordination, and I can get easily frustrated doing things over and over. This is why my favorite games are RPG's; games that generally don't require any hand/eye coordination. I haven't given up on Shadow Complex, however one or two tries in the spot I'm stuck in is all I can handle for a day or so. I've also been playing Dragon Quest IX here and there. I would really like to finish this game before the Holiday releases hit. Perhaps this weekend I can log some time.

News: Previously I said Nostalgia releases on October 20th... but I found out today that it's actually October 27th. The more I read about the game the more excited I get! I should really beat Dragon Quest IX first though. I have two weeks... Of course Borderlands releases this Tuesday...

I've been working on a review of Dragon Quest IX. I've actually had two different articles written, but wasn't happy with ether of them. Hopefully the final article will be finished soon. Until then please leave any suggestions you may have for this feature in the comments.

Shadow Complex First Impressions

I first heard of Shadow Complex when it arrived for xbox live arcade this summer, and was immediately interested by screenshots filled with futuristic military uniforms and mecha. However, upon reading that it was a "Metroidvania" game (that is a game inspired by the Metroid/Castlevania games) I brushed all interest aside.

See, I've tried to play several metroidvanias in the past, but never really got into them. I'm not sure if it's the action based side-scrolling gameplay, the circular nature of the exploration, or the subject matter of the two series; they've just never appealed to me. Metroidvanias do have some roleplaying elements to them, namely leveling and find new gear. I always want to give them a shot, I just can't get into them. This is why I immediately passed on Shadow Complex.

A few weeks back my friend LancerX picked up the game. Since then he's been giving it great phrases. I told him I'd give the trial a go, but kept passing due to my feelings on the game style. Finally Friday night I gave it a go. I was completely drawn in, playing right through to the end of the trial. This left me with the thought "Don't I have some Microsoft points around here somewhere?" I was that hooked. In fact, another friend came over Saturday and we blew through the trial game again (It's only single player, we took turns at the controls). I purchased the game Saturday night.

It took me a while to figure out why I was so hooked. It's basically a sidescroller in 3D with some interaction with the foreground and background. There are aiming issues, but these generally work themselves out. So the gameplay is a lot of fun, and the graphics are gorgeous, yet still not enough to hook me. There was something else which I couldn't put my finger on until I read the wikipedia entry. I found there that the development team loved G.I.Joe which they used for inspiration. That was when I knew why I was so hooked on the game.

If you have a 360 I urge you to download the free trial. Especially if, like me, your a huge G.I.Joe fan.

Fable 2 Journal - Day 1

Like most of the gaming world, I originally played Fable 2 for about a week. That was because one week later Fallout 3 released, and all other gaming ceased. In fact, I wasn't even going to pick up Fable 2. A friend (who didn't own a 360) was picking up the Fallout 3 special edition and was planning on leaving the game at my house. We thought if I got Fable 2 we could trade games once he picked up a 360. He never did pick up a 360, so I played Fallout 3 to the end. I don't remember what I got after that... but I never got back to Fable 2. So I thought now would be a good a time as any since I've got about two weeks before my next obsession, Borderlands, releases.

Originally when I played I decided to be a woman. I really wanted to be a chick with a big old revolutionary British coat, tricorn hat, and of course a corset. Totally doable in Fable 2... except that the coat was modeled for a man and it looks completely wrong. The other problem was that I decided to be a ranged specialist using pistols. Unfortunately most combats, like Fable, still came down to melee combat. I'm told you can work around this with spells, but that's not really what I wanted.

So I decided to build a male melee specialist. Not only that, but I've decided to create an evil character I'm calling "the Demon of Bowerstone". I don't normally play evil characters, but I figured what the hell, why not try something different. We'll see how it goes.

Shelving Last Remnant

I decided to shelve Last Remnant along with Lost Odyssey. I thought it was only fair since I had put Remnant on hold while I played more Odyssey. Also, Remnant had many more design choices I didn't like than Odyssey:

• Beat Game: Yup, it was here too. You choose your unit's actions just like a traditional turn-based rpg... then a button will pop up and if you hit it in time you get a bonus like extra damage or a counter attack. Don't mix control sequences!
• Annoying Protagonist: If you create a fantastic cast of characters with great European accents... don't screw it up by throwing in a protagonist using modern day slang. It's a very poor choice.
• Deceivingly Closed Party System: Last Remnant has guilds you can visit to recruit your own troops for creating your parties units. When I finally opened up the option to make my own units I picked up as many troops as I could. I was super excited to build up some of my own characters. However when I went to add them I found out some of the games main characters had joined my pool of troops. Their stats are much better than anything I can recruit, so I was enticed to use them. But will they stick with my party forever, or will they leave with the next cut-scene? I'm not sure... I was very confused whether I should build up my own troops or use the main characters.
  
• Questionable Story: I won't go into any specifics as to stay spoiler free, but some of the story elements were very strange. I'm not sure if they will make more sense when I get back to the game, but they sure don't look like they will.
  

Like Lost Odyssey, I'd like to come back to Last Remnant at some point. Heck, I didn't even get to summon any cool beasts like I saw in the trailer! For now however, it's going back on the shelf for the more deserving games on my to-be-played list.