Thalzon

Kid Chameleon is too serious to smirk.

http://www.ocremix.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23000 Boop.

True, in a sense. But not for playing games professionally. That's more for making games and being a designer. Designing videogames takes some of the magic of the medium right out, but that's true with anything. Playing games professionally is more like glurging yourself on the soup and drinking every last drop of it.

I didn't enjoy ACF because by the end I was just exasperated with the poor translation and bad plot. Wild Arms 5 starts alright, and I guess one can even have fun with it, but it seriously slows down the quick,fun battles of 4 and the plot again takes a turn for the exasperatingly stupid and repetitive. Dean is not an easily-relatable protagonist because he's the definition of ADD personified, and as the game winds down to its conclusion it starts to feel really repetitive. To be fair, 5 has a lot of content if you're willing to stick it out, and ACF does have a few bonuses in it if you have a Wild Arms 4 save. But 3 and 4 have the best characters and stories, IMO.

"Do what you love for a living and you'll never work a day in your life." Not saying I agree with all this ridiculous tourney competitiveness crap over a party game, but, y'know... To each their own.

Shadow Hearts the First did very little well, in my mind. The horror aspects were completely negated by the sloppiest, laziest translation I've seen in a long time, and the plot itself fell flat. The only reason I'd recommend playing it at all is so you're not let in the dark on certain plot elements (Alice, Yoshiko, Amon, Roger Bacon, and Albert Simon, mostly). But then again, Covenant explains those pretty well.

Rogue Galaxy, Wild Arms 3 and 4 (skip 5 and ACF, they're pretty dumb), and Shadow Hearts From the New World as well. Though I should state that Shadow Hearts isn't part of the SMT series of games. Alas, if it were, we'd probably be getting a part 4.

Uh, there's been hype? I must be visiting the wrong parts of the internet, because I've heard no excitement other than, "Hey, it looks cool" when the occasional trailer pops out. And last I heard, it won't be out until 2010. But yeah, it and Tales of Vesperia were the main reasons I bought a 360 to begin with, so I'm personally quite excited. The cast actually looks cool this time. (no feather-haired wankers so far!)

The pencil sketch has been sitting next to my desk since, like, the 3rd. I should really whip out the tablet and colour it already.

Who is the new playable in Vesperia, anyway?

I think I'll join this one. I have a funny idea in my head already.

Tales of the Abyss, Okami, Persona 3 and 4, Wild Arms 3, and maybe 4. Not 5 though. 5 was pretty bad. Digital Devil Saga 1 and 2 and SMT Nocturne (good luck finding those), SotC, Ico, God of War (if you like action games), Beyond Good & Evil (if you haven't already played it on something else), Shadow Hearts Covenant and Shadow Hearts From the New World (my highest recommendations; these games are awesome).

Yahtzee says lots of things.

Just get hit by someone who has played Phantom Hourglass?

It really just looks like the trains will be used as a mechanic to connect distant areas, perhaps for once justifying a Zelda game's geographic diversity.

Yay Zelda. So he's had a sailboat, a steamboat, and now a train... Wind Waker Link really likes his vehicles. Next up: dune buggies!

You do have swords, spears, and the like as well. Farming tools don't lend themselves to high damage or quick attacks. Not to say it can't be done, though. Hell, the watering can is a great way to clear out enemies surrounding you.

I've been playing Rune Factory Frontier, and it's been pretty fun so far. I've only fought one boss, but it was a damn difficult one. The boss of the first dungeon (Green Ruins) is a giant Gryphon. The thing does 60 damage, easily, can fly, keeping him out of range, and even spawn chicken enemies of its own (fortunately, it also kills them). It has a charging attack that can cause it to become dizzy if it runs into a wall, but late into the battle when it gets its attack/speed boost it becomes much more difficult to get it anywhere near the walls. Oh, and it starts doing around 80 damage per attack. It's a shock, especially since the DS games were so much easier in terms of boss fights. Bosses can be fought again as well, and I think their power either scales with the player's level, or they just get stronger each time they're killed. I deduced this when, after I defeated it once and fought it again, it was no longer weak to fire attacks. Either way, I wasted a lot of potions, only to die in the home stretch.

I often turned to a guide to beat Hotel Dusk. I'm just no good at these adventurin' games, especially when they distract you early on with like 4 separate plots (how am I supposed to think to put chalk in the pen's engraving?!). Also, after losing to and pissing off several people in the hotel and thus getting game overs, I went through the guide to pick the "right" answers so that I could avoid game overs and end up repeating a section of the story all over again.

Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland is the funniest damn part.

That looks bloody beautiful. More games need to do the hand-drawn deal.

At last! And on my mom's birthday, no less. I'll need to make a note of picking this one up.

House of the Dead Overkill is a great 2-player co-op game that was just recently released. It's not the "hard as hell" kind of on-rails shooter, but it's definitely entertaining and the levels are dynamic, and highly replayable. Also, this isn't really multiplayer, but a group of my friends and I had a great time playing Zack & Wiki together, especially the later levels where the puzzles get really tricky. We'd all shout out solutions or memorize different parts, pass the controller around, all that stuff. Good times.

Big sticks and making fire.

I went looking for a copy of Pokemon Emerald today. The only place that had it was EB Games, used... for $42. And Diamond and Pearl are on the shelf priced at $35. It was ridiculous.