f13.net forums - My Weekly Thing for the Week of 10/22/06

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
April 16, 2024, 03:51:31 AM

we're back, baby

My Weekly Thing for the Week of 10/22/06

I'm feeling frisky and work is slow, so I'm gonna go ahead and talk a bit about the releases this week. Also, don't forget about NVG.mobi for an expanded list of releases.

So, we've got another Guild Wars expansion coming out - Nightfall. It has two more classes. I'll be picking it up if solely for the box art, which I love and the extra stuff (for which I'm a whore), but I'm not so sure about playing it. The game still rubs me the wrong way and the loot simply isn't "there" yet. Prove me wrong though, I could go for some decent MMO action.

But you'll have to convince me before Wednesday since Phantasy Star Universe drops for the PS2, 360 and PC that morning. I'll, of course, be getting it for the 360 - and let me just say, this is a game you want to play with the 360 controller. It's too cryptic for a keyboard and no one likes being forced to use that goddamn dual shock.

Marvel: Ultimate Alliance comes out later this week. Couldn't care less. Though I probably should, seems like it could provide some fun. At least as much as Family Guy is - which I picked up earlier this week for the PS2. Marvel: Ultimate Alliance is being released on... Everything. Except the Gamecube. Goddamn, that's still fun to say.

Unfortunately, I have nothing to say about Dark Messiah of Might & Magic. I'd like to play it, but my PC would exploder all over my desk. Supposedly it's worth picking up though. You can do so on Wednesday.

Speaking of PC titles I won't be playing, FEAR and SW: Empire at War are getting expansions this week. The expansion market for single player games gives me the chills.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent is getting a release on GC, Xbox, and PS2 come Wed. If you must play it on last gen stuff, get the Xbox version. You want it to be as pretty as possible. It's a fantastic experience.

In the category "Miscellaneous Shit That Only Schild Will Play," we've got five titles: .Hack//GU V.1, Magical Starsign, Touch Detective (Atrus!), Scurge: Hive and Tokobot Plus. You wanna chat about these, click Discuss. Also, does anyone else love how inconsistant my Sunday ramblings are? Did I mention that this week scares me? Next week I think I'm gonna write about water buffalo breeding practices.

Phantasy Star -- 360 controllers can work on the PC apparently (Link).

I'll be sitting this one out for now though. Tell me if it's a game.

Strange that Splinter Cell gets a GC release, but Ultimate Alliance doesn't (Ultimate Alliance is being released on the Wii though).

I'll probably get .hack one day, so you aren't entirely alone.

Between Phantasy Star Universe and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, I'm sorely tempted to take my CoH break now. Meh, I'll wait until the end of the month and ample player reviews have been done on both.

I slogged my way through to finish the first .hack PS2 game, then bought the next in the four-part series. It didn't take me too long to play it to see that //Mutation was just //Infection with bigger numbers and different art content. It never was that great of a game, unless maybe you're fished in to the somewhat wierd plot, which makes everything Squaresoft has ever wrote look mature and easily understandable in comparison. So I'll not be getting into .Hack GU unless I've considerable scratch in my pocket to burn and perhaps a time machine of such industrial strength potency to make my time so invaluable as to ever want to so much as put a Bandai game in my PS2's DVD tray again.

Only thing I've really on my PS2 radar is Rogue Galaxy. *swoon*

Bah, screw blowing what little wad I have this week on DMoM&M or PSU.

Next week:
Neverwinter Nights 2
Sam & Max Episode 1. (Currently available only through Gametap, with worldwide release this upcoming week.)

See this week's losers in the bargain bin.

I'll probably be picking up Phantasy Star, though I'll probably stick to single player for a bit since I don't want to start paying a monthly fee only to get distracted by NWN2 and FFXII the week after. I'm tempted to pick up Marvel Ultimate Alliance (fucking Beta Ray Bill and Phantom Rider are in there as alternate costumes for Thor and Ghost Rider!) but I'll probably hold off until I'm done with everything else.

I was looking at some user uploaded Phantasy Star Universe videos over on Gamespot, and three things were apparent:

1) Single player mode (the only mode shown in the videos) is very, very dialogue heavy. I'm talking long stretches of 20 minutes or so of nothing but talking to various NPCs tagging along. So it seems PSO single player has a heavy story orientation.

2) All the futuristic JPop you can stomach. Trains running on laser tracks, active Phantasy Star-esque backdrops, and at least one prepubescent chibi cat girl.

3) Episodic format.

That said, I wonder how much emphasis was placed on the multiplayer game if there's so much focus on making this dialogue heavy, episodic single player game. Will players who go online (facing a $10/mo fee, yet) be confronted with a multiplayer game inferior to the original Phantasy Star Online?

I'm curious as to how Magical Starsign turned out. I am most likely the only person who appreciates Brownie Brown's art style, and I actually liked Sword of Mana. I won't get to play it, however, with all the releases this holiday season, however. Yggdra Union takes priority.

I have not found myself enjoying Magical Starsign enough to actually give a real opinion. I kinda like Children of Mana. And I agree, Yggdra Union takes priority. Finding it is impossible though - even though I preordered it (Gamestop pushed it back til next week). I FINALLY found Juka and the Monophonic Menace though. Squee.

Quote

The expansion market for single player games gives me the chills.

You've been getting the chills for well over a decade, then. Not like it's anything new.

Quote from: schild on November 18, 2006, 08:30:43 PM

Yeah, it seems strange that Nintendo would release an RPG during a time when the genre is actually get quite a few releases. Insert fanboy accusations that Nintendo wants RPGs to fail in America and that this is why we don't have Mother 3 in the US here.

My secret hope is that they're only holding out so they can release a combo for the DS.