What are you playing, stupid?

[Nameless 24]

Ys Seven and Sticker Star.

Ys Seven is amazing for me...everything a portable KH should be in my opinion....

Sticker Star is....interesting....you don't level up though, so fighting is mostly pointless...I hope it opens up soon.

[max_cady]

I've been playin' Final Fantasy XII for so long it hurts... in a good way.

I gotta be honest, it's been quite an amazing experience so far.

In the 50+ hours that I've had, I've travelled through a huge chunk of the game world and I've been doing a lot of side quests (thought it's been mostly killin' monsters and discovering hidden stuff), optional areas and such.

[spoiler] I've snuck into Archadia as part of Balthier's plan to get to the Archade's secret lab. But in order to progress, I need an air taxi, but to do so I've had to do Chops, which is a bizarre way for some Archadians to make a living. It's basically a way to act as a middle-man/messenger/courier serving the wealtheir people of Archades.

You memorize someone's story and pass it along to someone who might be interested in that bit of gossip.

Just when you think you've seen it all, FF 12 throws something new.

I willl say one odd thing, Vaan is given some of the worst dialogue bits in the entire game. He's really there just for the ride, but when the game decides to give him something of a spotlight it's to make him say embarrsing stuff like... Comment on the Lady Ashe's wardrobe (to which everyone in your crew gives Vaan the stink eye), to asking a somewhat trivial question about Fran's age.

I wish Vaan had a bigger stake in the story itself, but looking at it overall, it makes sense. He's a teenager who is going to places and talking to people he's never seen in his entire life. This makes Vaan a little different from the douchebags in Final Fantasy XIII, mainly because his awkwardness is genuine.
[/spoiler]

[ungibbed]

I fired up a game in my backlog that I'm kicking myself for not playing much sooner.

L.A. Noire ...


Of the areas I remember of LA the last time I was there, most everything is dead on accurate for that time frame in the area. Compared to some old photos taken my grandmother, damn Rockstar published one hell of a great and engaging game.

Fuckin' loving it!

[CrazyT]

Have just recently finished Viking: Battle of Asgard on steam

I have a hard time to recommend this game without spoiling anything, but let me just say that the game is much bigger than meets the eye. At the beginnign I thought it was gonna be a generic linear hack and slash game, but this is actually a free roaming game within massive and uniquely constructed worlds.

I highly recommend this game to anyone who likes adventuring through a vast world full of woods, beaches, caves and more. The game isn't perfect on a technical level and there is always room for improvement, but as it is, the game is excellent.

Hopefully creative assembly makes another adventure game in the future

[max_cady]

Yeah, Viking: Battle for Asgard should've been used as a blueprint for Golden Axe: Beast Rider.

Anyway, I got my Xbox 360 back, but I'm still dyin' to finish FF XII on the PS2.

Here's a brief checklist of things I'vd done:

[spoiler]Killed the Lindwyrm. Darn it. I spent a few hours level-grinding and still lost in the first two encounters. But this time I came prepared. Took me nearly an hour to beat him, but man did it felt good.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]Crossed most of the Feywood and now I am stuck with some weird temples that show illusions when you rotate the camera around. Figure they'do something[/spoiler]

The trouble with Final Fantasy XII is that leveling up doesn't necessarily mean that your stats will be automatically bumped. If anything leveling up only bumps your HP and MP, changing your gear up is what really makes a difference. When you switch to stronger weapons and better protection, some of those tougher areas simply become a slaugtherhouse. But better equipments costs a lot of gill, so it evens itself out.

[Nameless 24]

Dust: An Elysian Tale.

Amazing interaction between Dust, Fidget, his sword and even the mysterious merchant. It's so adorable~!

[max_cady]

I'm pretty close to finishing Final Fantasy XII.


I've also decided to pick up Sonic the Fighters on XBLA. I'm actually quite surprised by this title. In a good way. It's the bare bones essential of this title. You play the game, it might take you about 10-12 minutes to finish it. There are no other game modes except Online Play and Versus, which is acceptable. This game was clearly designed as a quarter muncher, because after the third stage, the difficulty ramps up quite a bit. Metal Sonic is cheap boss while Eggman is pretty much just there for laughs, because he's a push-over. It's easy to pick up and play. So I expect to pick it up and play it for a while.

[Barry the Nomad]

Been playing All-Stars Racing Transformed still. My plan has been to get 2-3 stars a day (I'm going through all the hard mode missions) and I figure rather than burn myself out in one sitting, I really try and beat a few missions at a time.

[max_cady]

More than 90 hours of Final Fantasy XII. All I have to do is go to the final dungeon and fight the final boss battle. And that's it. But there's so much content here that it's a shame to just have it end! The sidequests have their own subplots, there are at least three optional dungeons, there are hunting missions where you can explore the same areas in order to find rare monsters. Sometimes it's as easy as going to a specific location and the beast appears. Sometimes, you have to fulfill specific conditions(kill all the monsters, shut down gambits and/or have certain item equipped). The Hunts which are also a huge core part of the sidequests also involve multiple mini-arks, do them and you unlock secret locations and even fight optional bosses. I mean wow... just wow. It pains me to say this, but Final Fantasy XII is so much better than Final Fantasy XIII in every conceivable way. I'd even throw in FF XIII-2 in for good measure. I'd go so far as to say that it stands toe-to-toe with most of the modern JRPGs that have come out in 2007-2010.

[CrazyT]

Why does it pain you to say it. Final fantasy 13 isn't bad, but it is quite terrible for final fantasy standards

I'm quite surprised you are at the final dungeon. I started with the game a long time ago and you beat me to it lol. Gotten too distracted with Mass effect lately. I've been trying to pick up the franchise

[max_cady]

And I'm done with Final Fantasy XII. I've beaten the final boss or rather a series of boss battles culimating into a major showdown and a dramatic ending. Thank you very much, Square-Enix. Now I can say that I new understand why Final Fantasy was a juggernaut of a franchise in it's time.

The game came out in 2007. So pretty much around the same we started seeing the first crop of HD JRPGs, like Eternal Sonata, Lost Odyssey and a few other titles. Like I said before, it stands toe-to-toe with a lot of 'em. It was good enough to keep me away from my Xbox 360 for a long time.

[Barry the Nomad]

150 stars in All-Stars Transformed! I found that the S rank missions are really not that hard if they're tracks you've mastered. 15 stars to go!

[mylifewithsega]

I beat Binary Domain. I gotta' admit, it's an awesome fucking game. I didn't use the voice recognition because I didn't feel like marrying the PS3 to my BlueTooth again. The game plays just fine without it.

Still working my through Aliens vs Predator. I really dig this one. I don't why gamers have given it so much shit. Love playing as the alien. Running along walls and ceilings reminds me of Alien 3, which is a good thing. The predator's wicked. I didn't think I'd care for the Marine's playthrough, seeing as how ya' can run 'round shoot people in any FPS. However, it's scaring the shit outta' me half the time. Dark corridors, flairs, flickering flourescent lights; really makes me feel like I'm playing the movie. Aliens are fuckin' terrifying! They don't attack you right away like Alien Trilogy. Instead, they screw with your head first; just like the movies. I'm digging it.

May have to review these games properly at some point.

[Monkeroony]

135 stars in Sonic Transformed!

I'm also playing a bit of NSMBU here and there.
I must admit, selling my PS Vita for a Wii U has been a great decision for me, I only bought a vita to play at home whilst the other half watches TV, the Wii U does a far better job of this.

[max_cady]

I'd like to make some minor observations about my first 2 hours of Max Payne 3:
-Even on Easy Mode it's still very chalenging, because you don't have any regenerating health and enemies can kill you with a few well placed shots;
-The graphics are very impressive;
-I am not a fan of the trippy video effects they jam in there and the random words that pop up as onscreen text for no apparent reason;
-The dialogue, wow... Especially in the part that takes place in São Paulo... My God, there's so much profanity that it's flips-flops from uncomfortable to unrealisticly funny, even moreso since I understand EVERYTHING they're sayin';

Overall, a pretty good so far.