Chrono Trigger!

Chrono Trigger for DS makes an excellent stocking stuffer:) So when I'm in transit, that's my game of choice now.

At home, my honey decided he was bored with his level 74 warlock in WoW, so we've started from scratch again. He's having a blast with a new warrior and I'm trying out a priest. And since he's off work for the holidays, he's trailing my little Draenei along with him, power-levelling us up to level 38 already.

While I love my crazy feral druid, I'm having fun with the priest. I chose to start a priest for my alt since the reason I avoided MMOs was because of the whole multi-player aspect. Other people, especially a lot of gamers, are douchebags online. Peopl go online, get a bit of anonymity and become total idiots. At least that had been my experience previously.

So when we did our first playthrough, we did no PvP, no dungeons, no guilds. Just me and my honey roaming the country-side. When we got to a higher level, I started trying some of the multi-player stuff and had some awful experiences. But the good experiences with groups out-weighed the bad. So this time, I wanted to create a character that was completely dependant on being played with others. So I've got my holy priest, with all talent points put into healing and nothing in damage.

As is, I can't solo. If I do, it's super slow. But with my warrior by my side, we make quick progress through everything. And this time we're doing all the dungeons as we go. It's a different challenge to keep tabs on everyone, adapting myself to everyone else's playing styles, having to get to know them quick so I can be effective. Playing a healer has a lot to do with reading other people because you need to be able to anticipate what's going to happen next. Just reacting to things as they happen gets everyone into trouble fast.

Overall, I'm enjoying the experience. But I'm looking forward to getting back to my druid in Dalaran.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention! Another xmas gift my honey got for me was this set of prints from Etsy:


So awesome:)

Happy holidays!

No holiday time off for me! I have to save up my vacation days, so I'm only off on Friday. I'll be curled up with Hotel Dusk Room 215 on DS during those long family moments. I'm really getting into this game, though it's much more an interactive novel than an actual game. I love the art style and the story is just mysterious enough to keep me going without being too cliché that I get sick of it. Playing it in 15 minute chunks on metro rides is hard, it'll be nice to sit down and have a good, long session with it.

I'm also likely to be seen playing another DS game since there's one under the tree that's the shape of a DS game, which just so happened to be on my list. I can't wait to open my gifts!

Family time will also likely involve lots of Wii gaming, since my sister-in-law got one for Christmas. I'm bringing along my collection of games and extra controllers so that they can have the full family gaming experience that's best suited to the Wii. Hopefully she'll adore No More Heroes as much as I did.

And I'm so thrilled to see No More Heroes showing up on so many Best-of-2008 lists! It's not a game for everyone, certainly. And given that it came out in January last year, it's impressive that it's stuck in people's minds given the recent slew of blockbusters that were released.

Have a safe and happy holiday season everyone!!

Pole dancing game

Last spring, a company had sent out a release saying they want to work with any dev or publisher who wants to make a pole dancing game. Apparently they had no bites since they've just sent it out AGAIN. Joystiq is polling the masses to see which dev studio they should be the one to make it. Of course Rockstar is in the lead. I voted for Platinum Games. Imagine Mad World-style pole dancing!

However, I have to say I really did LOL when I was reading the comments, especially the pair that said:

"Can we add 3D Realms to the list of developers so that it NEVER gets made?"

"Yeah. And 10 years later get 3 screenshots of different colored in-game poles."

HA! Too true!

Wet in action

Yay! I'm so happy someone FINALLY posted something about this game:) Looks like it was filmed at David Lightbown's MIGS presentation on the game (I think you can see the top of my head in a few shots). This video is unfortunately super deformed, it should be widescreen and plus it appears to have been taken with a camera phone.

Which is a shame, because so much of this game is in the details. It has an amazing stylistic look to it. There's a heavy filter over all he game, giving it a grainy flickering look of an old 70s-ish pulp film.

I'm excited that people are finally talking about this game, because it's what my hubby's been working on for the past few months. He's a level designer at A2M and the game sounds super interesting. I can't wait to actually play it.

Aside from the video, the rest of David's presentation on their graphic tools was pretty impressive. I'm no artist, but what they've built to work with the textures and materials for the models in the game is impressively robust. Which is why it's such a shame that the video quality is so poor. The tools that they have created have really given an impressive amount of visual depth to the game. Hopefully they'll put a proper gameplay trailer up soon.

[via videogame247]

What I've been playing now

It's been quite a while since I've posted about what games I'm playing, there's just been so many to play that I haven't had time to write about them! What's on deck now?

I finished Fable 2 pretty quickly. It was fun and engaging, easy and interesting. I'm happy they're releasing DLC so soon, great timing since it's easy enough to get through the main story. I like the breadcrumb trail, the emotive system, the way experience is earned and divided by skill. I also really loved the music in the game; it really added a lot to the game.

The bad were still very present, but not enough to make me put the game down for long. The co-op experience was severely crippled, unfriendly and actually discouraged us from playing the game co-op for more than 15 minute chunks. The inventory system that was horribly disorganized (can't even sort alphabetically?) and kicked you out every time you used an item so you had to re-enter to use the same item twice in a row? The choices in the game didn't go far enough. Your final and ultimate decision at the end, sure it has an impact, but it still feels as if nothing you did before even mattered if you playing the extra post-story quests.

We bought Fallout 3 (with lunchbox) the day it came out. I've only had the chance to reach Megaton. My hubby, on the other hand has collected all the bobbleheads in the game. But now that he's done with it, I've got my chance to play it!

I've had opportunities, sure, but I haven't really been motivated to pick it up. It's so...bleak. Every time I see him play it, it all looks the same. It's grey. Blech. I see enough of that outside every day with the coming (non-nuclear) winter. Even the original Fallout games weren't that dreary. There was Reno! And Vault City! Islands of humanity shining out from the post-apocalyptic world. And the radioactivity made things sparkle a bit too ;) I'm just not interested in relaxing into doom and gloom after a long day.

We're also slowly making our way through the latest WoW expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. There's some neat variety in the missions, like airlifting survivors out of an area, driving around a tank and riding mammoths. I like how there are central mission hubs, but there are so many more secondary and tertiary hubs from those too. This expansion feels a whole lot less linear. Burning Crusade felt far too linear, going from one hub to the next.

We're in no rush to get through it. We play it more like a casual game, something to pass the time for an hour or two, with a few days off in between. Even with the new quest types, they can still get a bit repetitive, so it's nice to take a break between so that I don't go insane from fetch quests.

Left 4 Dead is the latest co-op game we bought. So much fun:) It's a rare game where I'm willing to play through a problem area time and time and time again. I've got a notoriously short challenge vs. fun threshold. And yet I can keep playing the same section again and again to try to pass it.

The only problem seems to be that you really need 4 people to play it. The AI, while surprisingly intelligent, can be so frustratingly stupid at times. When you want to hold your ground, close the doors and keep in a tight group, idiot AI will open the door, run out, and get stuck behind a wall. *sigh* It can be frustrating when you know you're failing not because of something you're doing, but because of something you have no control over and can't fix. When you reach that point of realization, it's a game ender. I need to find more people to play this game with, most people I know are playing it on PC.

I waffled for a long on which platform I should get Civilization Revolutions, but given its addictiveness, I had no choice but to go with DS. Easily portable! It's a dumbed-down Civ, for sure, but it's still civ. It's fun:) And it's always just...one...more...turn!

I haven't had much time to spend on it yet, but I know that it's one I'll play off-and-on for many many years to come.

We had also picked up Tales of Vesperia to play co-op. Unfortunately the co-op is as bad, if not worse than Eternal Sonata. The second player doesn't get to explore and doesn't gain any achievements. The game is also highly customizable, like any hardcore JRPG, and a second player really inhibits the amount of time you feel ok with tweaking, lest the other person get bored. We had high hopes.

Aside from the co-o stuff though, the game is amazing! The characters are exceedingly adorable and hilarious. And the art...it's the most beautiful game I have ever seen on the Xbox. The art style is so perfect, you're playing a manga cartoon. It's worth checking out if you like JRPGs.

And while I haven't picked them up for a while, I still need to make my way through all of Half-Life 2, Braid, more Wii Fit to unlock, Castle Crasher among others.

There's a bunch of games that I still want to buy, but haven't yet, like Chrono Trigger for DS, Dead Space, Afro Samauri, and oh so many more. It's just been an explosion of awesome games! yay!