The Gaming Diary: Chapter 3

[Shadow Kisuragi]

Finally got the Puzzle Quest DLC to recognize.

I was having an issue where it was seeing the DLC for character selection but not when i actually loaded into the game.
It took a few tries once i figured out what the problem was but i got it to work and wrapped it in no time.


Popped in Gears: Judgment to grab an event medal. I need 11 more. So if they keep updating on their usual schedule and i remember to put it in every time i should be done by 2016ish

Did my weekly challenge in Project Spark.

Firing up Puzzle Quest: Galactrix now.... Not sure what to expect. I'm pretty sure it was radically changed from the PQ2 which was changed from PQ. I liked not losing resourced for a blocked attack in PQ2 and the weapons ability. But i preferred the board always being the same size/shape in PQ more so.

EDIT
OK now that i have moved around on game map and used the battle system a bit....
This game is going to probably blow.

EDIT 2
Oh my god absolute shit.
Battles are probably going to take forever and i hate that it is laid out like a hex tactical map. Then things don't drop from the top. They drop in whatever direction you moved the piece to make the match. Cascades seem to in turn fall from whatever direction the game decides.

Crap, Judgment is still doing events? Need to pop that in again. Thanks for the reminder.
Warned you about Galactrix.

[Link41]

Mafia (XB) - Finishing up a few things before playing final mission.

[Izret101]

Popped in Gears: Judgment to grab an event medal. I need 11 more. So if they keep updating on their usual schedule and i remember to put it in every time i should be done by 2016ish

Firing up Puzzle Quest: Galactrix now.... Not sure what to expect. I'm pretty sure it was radically changed from the PQ2 which was changed from PQ. I liked not losing resourced for a blocked attack in PQ2 and the weapons ability. But i preferred the board always being the same size/shape in PQ more so.

EDIT
OK now that i have moved around on game map and used the battle system a bit....
This game is going to probably blow.

EDIT 2
Oh my god absolute shit.
Battles are probably going to take forever and i hate that it is laid out like a hex tactical map. Then things don't drop from the top. They drop in whatever direction you moved the piece to make the match. Cascades seem to in turn fall from whatever direction the game decides.

Crap, Judgment is still doing events? Need to pop that in again. Thanks for the reminder.
Warned you about Galactrix.

Yea i think the schedule for GoW:J is supposed to be once every 2 weeks.
I can't remember for sure. I think Gear 3 is on the same time frame. Their is a link to the appropriate threads on the Gears forums about the event updates.

Galactrix hasn't gotten any better. The travel system is atrocious and i am pretty sure i ended up on a quest line that is was to hard for me. It took me like 3 hours to beat an enemy ship(constantly getting my ass kicked) and when i finally did i leveled up two times and most of the way through the 3rd...

All of the enemies have at least 2x my shields and are just generally way to powerful. And if you lose and don't try again you travel back to where you were coming from. And then get attacked by a ship there that is just as powerful. Some enemies have 3x the health and 2x the shields.

Going to have a hell of a time finding my way back....

[Beardcore84]

smash bros

[bombatomba]

Playing both Risk of Rain (thanks, Fleach!) and Don't Starve.  The latter game is a great little survival game that gives me that squishy Rogue-like feeling that I enjoy getting without the insane level of difficulty (hello, Project Zomboid).  It's hard, but the fact that your efforts actually count for something such as unlocking playable character really keeps you going. 

Risk of Rain...  is super fun and hard as nails.  The art design and game mechanics really bring me back to a simpler time, though the gameplay really makes me thing of a combination of Dark Souls and a shmup.  But I just cannot get past the second level, no matter what boss is waiting for me.  There are also unlockable characters in this game, but they appear to be entirely skill-based.  That, and the fluidity of the controls, really keeps me coming back.  Four our of five coney dogs.

[GrayGhost81]

I've had an interesting few days starting the weekend early for the holiday.

First there's Heavenly Sword. Man, what an interesting game. It had so many things going for it, for example amazing voice acting and mocap, an emotional story, and that cool Ninja Theory hack & slash combat involving pulling the triggers to modify your weapon on the fly. This system was also used in their reboot of DmC. On the other hand, this being an early PS3 game there is a lot of sixaxis action and although for the most part I'd get used to it overall, I'd groan every time it popped up as it became a chore to use, especially in longer sequences where the fail states meant you'd have to start all over again. Also, though they're not overused to be honest, there are QTEs. I'm in the camp that thinks QTEs need to be put out to pasture and in this game, as usual, they only serve to break immersion, especially when used in situations where they can end a boss battle, unless failed in which case the boss regains half his life bar. That is hair-pulling.

Interestingly enough, I'd read some widespread hatred for the final boss of this game. I gave it a few tries and couldn't really figure out what to do. Now I should backtrack a little and note that this game has a counter system where if you hit triangle right at the moment of impact you can counter almost any attack, including projectiles. The thing is, I simply could never get the hang of the timing required to counter projectiles. In the third major boss battle there was an opportunity to counter projectiles for major damage but I could never pull it off. In that particular battle however the boss also engages you in regular combat. So it took me longer but I was able to grind through it by surviving the projectile attacks and the whittling his health down via regular combat. So fast forward to the final boss. I was getting my ass kicked, so I looked up a youtube video entitled something along the lines of "Heavenly Sword Final Boss + Ending." To make a long story even longer I saw that in order to defeat the final boss (in all three of his forms) one must counter a ton of (sometimes rapid) projectile attacks. Before I knew it I had watched that entire video, including the ending and credits, said "No thanks" and put the game in my trade pile. And you can bet your ass I added the game to my beaten in 2014 list. I put a lot of hard time into that game so I don't feel bad about having some youtuber do the last fifteen minutes for me.

So what else? I had been playing Sly Cooper Thieves in Time on Vita, and although I thought I liked it, something about it just wasn't really blowing me away or calling me back to it. I decided for the first time to use the cross-save feature and try the game out on PS3. At first it breathed new life into the game but almost immediately the same underwhelming feelings kicked in. This morning I struggled through the third major boss battle which left me with that feeling of "is it me or are these boss battles really poorly designed?" I ended up watching a handful of reviews of the game and even favorable reviews noted that the boss battles were bullshit. So, I think I'm going to drop this one. I've only ever played the first in the series before this so I think I'd be better off going back and playing Sly 2 and 3 if I was in the mood for it.

I had figured that a long holiday weekend would be a good opportunity to jump headfirst into a nice meaty JRPG so I decided to pop in Eternal Filena. After all I just dropped almost $40 on that repro cart and it took forever to get it so I wanted to try it out. It seemed good enough but having just played Albert Odyssey it only took about forty-five minutes for me to realize this game was too similar to that one in its old school JRPG mechanics to play so close together, so I shelved it.

Then I popped in Sin & Punishment for the December playthrough (wasn't paying attention or it would've been R-Type Final, the game for week one). Holy crap what an amazing game. I mean it is really something special. You know that anecdotal question you sometimes hear on podcasts or youtube videos that goes like "What game would you show to someone who had never heard of video games to show him what they were all about?" I always had a hard time thinking of a good answer to that question. Not any more. This is everything a video game should be. It is fun, frantic, challenging, and beautiful. As Mark from CGR noted in his video review of the first game in the series, the game asks you to do a lot of things at once. It is engaging in an incredible way and requires an intense amount of focus. I noted in the shmup thread that the game is hard as hell, even on easy, and even playing as Kachi (who has auto lock-on). For the most part it is hard in a fun way, meaning rather than making you want to chuck the WiiMote through a wall (if it weren't strapped to your wrist anyway), dying gives you that "Ok this time I got it, LET ME AT 'EM!" kind of feeling.

So I'm a little more than halfway through that game. I'm going to give it another try for sure but I have completely accepted that I may not complete it.

So now I have a few choices. I've been in the mood to play my next Tales game as it's been about a year since I played Vesperia. I also want to play Persona Q which I swore, especially after dropping $85 on it, that it would be a "drop everything else and dive in" kind of game as soon as I got it. Having said that my 3DS is fully charged and ready to go, I'm just not sure I want to do two massive JRPGs at the same time. Heavenly Sword was meant to be a kind of palette cleanser after Albert Odyssey, but quitting Sly Cooper is putting me in a position where the JRPGs wouldn't be staggered. So the choice is: Do I play Persona Q and something else on the consoles, play Tales of Hearts R on Vita instead? Or dive into both? I don't know. For now I can take another crack at the spot I'm stuck at in Sin & Punishment and maybe check out R-Type final.

Anyway I hope my American friends are enjoying the long weekend, if like me at least, you got today off. Happy gaming!

[Shadow Kisuragi]

First time in 6 years I've had the day off without pay, and to make matters worse, I'll likely spend the day doing homework. 
Hope everyone else is enjoying the time off.

[Duke.Togo]

I've been sick for a few days, so I played some Far Cry 4 last night. I got stuck on a mission that seemed a bit glitched, and it was pretty frustrating. The failure condition wouldn't always execute properly, so that you could fail the mission, but not be forced to restart. This took me a long time to figure out as I couldn't figure out why I couldn't progress. At times it would even glitch and play the audio for the transition, but never continue. Eventually I figured out the contrived path they wanted me to take and could continue. I hope others don't run into it, as it has been amazing otherwise.

[techwizard]

tl;dr

where is the real Shawn and what did you do with him? this post can't be from the same guy who says "if a PM gets too long I just skim or don't read it."

[GrayGhost81]

tl;dr

where is the real Shawn and what did you do with him? this post can't be from the same guy who says "if a PM gets too long I just skim or don't read it."

Heavenly Sword inspired me. I figured I've been wanting to take a crack writing about games a little more seriously so why not start small? That game had a lot of things to discuss, and once I got going the thoughts just kept coming.

[SirPsycho]

That's how I started doing reviews.

[GrayGhost81]

And your reviews are great so I'm following some nice footsteps.

[GrayGhost81]

Here's another review that will take me considerably less time to write.

Sin & Punishment: Star Successor for the Nintendo Wii. When I beat it I was like:

[img width=620 height=350]http://www.revolutionsoccer.net/sites/newengland/files/goncalves_gif.gif[/img]

In conclusion, best game ever.

[Link41]

Plants vs. Zombies (PS3/PSN) - Playing coop with the wife when the kids are in bed.

[GrayGhost81]

Started Persona Q this morning. Ended up putting two and a half hours into it already. The idea of an Etrian Odyssey game with a Persona skin on it was a little intimidating to me at first as my only experience with EO was playing EO IV demo for like ten minutes and always hearing about how hard they are. I feel like I'm taking to the gameplay pretty well though, and the Persona presentation (like slightly remixed versions of the music) gives me all the warm and fuzzy feelings I was hoping for.