New year, New attempt

I suppose a new year is a good a reason as any to try posting regularly again. Games are what I speak of the most right now, so lets run with that.

* Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma (PS3)

Picked this one up on a whim. The online multiplayer is a nice option but not sure I'll ever get the chance to try it. I'd never played any of the current generation Ninja Gaiden games, so was curious about the insane difficulty that these games supposedly have. Well, after playing this game for about an hour, I'm going to say that it's not necessary hard, it's just frustrating, and on purpose. The control of your character is stiff and clumsy at times, and that seems like the major cause of any issues you might have. It seems either very difficult or impossible to dodge or move while you are attacking an enemy, and so I frequently find myself being stabbed in the back while I'm trying to kill someone. Had the controls allowed for a little more fluid transition between attacking, dodging, and defending, I think the game would still be very difficult, but in the sense of being challenging, not unfair.

* Borderlands (PS3)

Purchased at the insistence of my older brother and completely worth the investment. This is the first game that he and I have been able to play online cooperatively (mainly because he got a PS3 while I got an Xbox 360 intially).

Essentially Diablo 2 as a FPS, this game is a good deal of fun, and it does a good job of remaining challenging and enjoyable when played as either single player or multiplayer. My only major complaint is the final boss and the ending, which seemed to have absolutely no connection to the story or even to the setting of the game. No explanation or reasoning is given for it either before or afterwards, and that really bothered me. Others may not enjoy that the only replay value is either playing through again on higher difficulty or as a different character, but for someone that enjoyed playing through Diablo 2 (and other similar games) numerous times, I don't mind it.

* Star Ocean: The Last Hope (Xbox 360)

Ugh. I purchased this game way back in April or May of 2009 because I really wanted to play an RPG on the Xbox. A recent release, it seemed like a decent game based on initial impressions and some stuff I'd read. I had never really been that impressed with the Star Ocean series, but that was mainly due to an attempt to play one of the older PS1 versions several years ago. I figured it deserved another attempt. The later purchase of more coveted games later caused me to ignore this game for a long time until I at last picked it back up around November.

The biggest issues are the voice acting and the story. I don't mind English voice actors, but often times I prefer the Japanese simply because they're better at it and actually put effort into it. Sadly, this game was English voice only, and oh god, are they ever bad. The voices match the characters reasonably well, but the talent is lacking, and the cutscenes suffer for it. The lousy character animations don't help the cutscenes either. Movements are stiff and often comical.

The story is just rather blah, and the worst part is the main character is so utterly disinteresting that it's painful to watch. A typical young hero, typical sudden shove into a commanding role, typical heroic breakdown, and then his path/reasoning for getting out of that breakdown is so completely ridiculous that it just ruins it. I feel like if I had played previous Star Oceans that it would be more interesting because certain story elements obviously reference stuff from previous games, but overall the story is just poorly written and executed.

The battle system takes a good bit of getting used to, and honestly it's not that bad. A few minor changes is really all it would have needed to remove some of the minor frustrations. Other annoyances are the usual collecting/crafting/finding side quests and systems that nearly every game feels the need to include these days. Developing recipes for crafting seems very random, and actually crafting something often uses items that either require pointless grinding, or just aren't available until very very late in the game.

And final nail in the coffin? Late in the game on Disc 3, you have the ability to return to previous areas/planets to finish quests, find items, whatever. However, counter to all logic and precedence, going to a previous planet requires inserting Disc 1 or Disc 2. Yea, there's no chance in hell I'm going to start disc-swapping over and over just to finish a little bit of content. So that's the end of that.

* For the Future

* Re-visit games I haven't touched in several months for varying reasons. Mass Effect, BioShock, and Valkyria Chronicles are the major ones.
* May pick up Zelda: Spirit Tracks and Assassin's Creed 2.
* And hopefully I'll be able to get into the beta for Final Fantasy XIV. No idea when that starts, but my application is in, so we'll see.

Hot Shit of The Week - Unseasonably Hot October 2009 Edition

It's been a great month and the hot shit just keeps on coming. To start out this week's post I thought it might be good to explain the process used to determine what constitutes hot shit. There are three simple rules:

1. No hype. To be hot shit worthy, something has to be substantially available.
2. Cool, Useful, Hilarious, Cheap/Free, or Entertaining: pick two.
3. It's only geeky if you're ashamed of it. It's only a fad if you stop caring about it.

Now with that little bit of administrivia out of the way I'm very excited to get started with this week's Hot Shit.

First Up: Hey Ash Whacha Playin'?

Love'em or hate'em, Destructiod has some pretty good content. If it wasn't such a chaotic site, Destructiod might even be a good alternative to the game-site-I-hate-to-use-but-pretty-much-have-to, IGN. Excessive poop humor and findability aside, Hey Ash Whacha Playin'? is a great video series starring an oppositionally defiant female gamer and her brother. If I thought my parents would buy me something from online, this would definitely be on my Christmas list.

As with most web series the episodes are short and of variable length. Comedy is spotty, but they do a great job of building on the gags. Poop humor gradually becomes actually funny. There is an occasional dud, but my harshest criticism is over use of foul language which doesn't really do much to add to the comedic effect. Hey Ash is a charming and clearly an indie production unlike a number of other semi-/para-/quasi-professional web series out there.

The biggest challenge in being a fan of Hey Ash Whatcha Playin' is finding episodes and figuring out what order they are best watched in. Eighteen dollars seems highly reasonable for their DVD release, but not having purchased it yet I can't say that with any certainty.

Next Up: Fat Princess

While you might never see an Xbox exclusive game make it onto the Hot Shit list, that is not because there are no such titles that deserve it. It is because I don't own an Xbox, I'll never own one (unless someone is feeling generous), and I very rarely have the opportunity to play on someone else's. Techno-political issues and politically correct game concepts aside it is great to see developers that work really hard to provide a good online multi-player experience like the kids at Titan Studios.

Earlier this week details for the 1.03 patch were announced. This update comes almost three months after the US release and includes a number of attempts to fix social and technical issues with the online multi-player.  Designing games with online competitive ranking is hard. There are always going to be rude-ocd-wankers out there that will use every cheap-ass bug in the game and play the system to boost their score while sucking the fun out of it for the rest of us. It is the kind of thing that impossible to eliminate, but Titian is doing a really good job of addressing it and some of their solutions are down right creative.

To boot the official word is that the 1.03 update will include, for free, the New Pork map which has set the Fat Princess community a buzz. There is still no word on when for-pay content will be added to Fat Princess, but this is a case where free is infinitely more fun than paid.

Fat Princess is currently one of the more expensive PSN download only titles at $14.99 US. It is however worth it. The solo play is very fun and disappointingly short, but provided you have a good Internet connection the online play can make it well worth it.

Moving Along: Passive Aggressive Notes

First oppositional defiance and now passive aggressiveness? This week's hot shit sure is chocked full of social disorders. Passive Aggressive Notes is another in a long line of recommended blogs you'll see here in Hot Shit of The Week. Some of the material there is weak, but it is a lot harder to prove a fake passive aggressive note (PAN) than a photo shopped image. The humor also often requires some shared social experience.

Passive aggressive behavior is much more funny if it relates to something one has dealt with personally. Most of the notes follow common situations: retail stores, roommates, dating. The real gems are the ones that make you wonder just how pathological people can be before they are labeled insane.

And Before I Forget: Old School Shit - Timing

It is critical in comedy, in business, in life: It's Timing. Don't be too early or you're wasting time and likely resources, but don't be too late because that is just a missed opportunity. Timing is also about appropriateness. If you start a slow clap at the wrong time, you're going to look like an idiot. You can't bring back old fads too early either.

Here are some things everyone can brush up on to improve their timing skills:

The running head start - People that try to go from zero to sixty instantly often wind up flat on their face. If you want to look like a pro, practice. The clever thing to do is find ways to practice in a value added way, without looking like a fool.

Know your windows - With timing there is a window of opportunity. Sometimes it is like Rock Band: the closer to optimum the better. Other times it is like Blackjack and you either hedge our bets or play it safe with good enough. More often than not however it is just better to make it somewhere in the window while balancing other commitments. Avoid sweating the details whenever possible.

Under commit, over deliver  - It can be hard to sell a course of action that looks padded, but a good start is to hold your cards close. Don't give away all of the aces. Who ever it is you're trying to impress, they will be more pleased with a pleasant surprise than slipping deadlines. Without slack, there is no control over timing.

Finally: More Indies, Indies, Indies, Indies

There are commercial games, indies, and then Real Indies. Don't get me wrong. I am very exicted that full-scale indie-feeling games are being released commercially. It is like bread and butter: commercial games are the bread and indie games are the butter. When the two come together it is SOOOOO GOOD.

On the other hand, sometimes you just want butter. Free games are not indie games. Some of them are just commercial games that lacked that certain something or were made for the sole purpose of pushing paid advertising and drawing potential convertible customers. Real indies are a whole-nother innovative breed. Today I Die, and the other games at Daniel Benmergui's Ludomancy are a great example of really-really indie.

To add to this, it really feels like we are on the creative cusp where more people will be empowered to go from entertainment consumers to entertainment producers. It is a really exciting place to be.

Trip the stupid fantastic

I don't really get mad at Microsoft much anymore, because honestly it's not worth the trouble, but...

You take an Xbox 360, and a Windows machine with Windows Media Player 11, and you can share media from your computer to your Xbox. Music, movies, and so forth, and you're pretty good so long as the 360 can recognize the file format. And a kudos to Microsoft, because in one of the more recent Dashboard updates, they gave the Xbox the ability to play .mp4 files, which can be used for HD quality! Alright!

Oh but hey, Windows Media Player CAN'T! So since Windows Media Player is sharing your .mp4 files, it can't share what it can't recognize! Fantastic!

But ok! Supposedly Zune software can do it. So, I download! I install! I try!

FAIL!

Hell, Zune software can't share anything! Not even the .avi files I was sharing with WMP11. Oh yea, that worked great. So, back to Google. I search, and with luck, I find another answer. And I try it, and hey! it works! By a small tweak, Windows Media Player is able to share .mp4s to my Xbox. And how, you ask, is this possible?

FILE.mp4 => (rename!) => FILE.wmv

Bloody fantastic Microsoft. Great job.

Demos

Some thoughts on some demos I recently downloaded off XboxLive...

Lord of the Rings: Conquest

• OK, so could Pandemic Software's little movie for themselves be any longer?
  
• I really hope they change the voice for the narrator/guide, or make him talk less, or something. He is extremely annoying. I only got to play as the Army of Middle-Earth, and I have to wonder if the guide for the Army of Mordor is any worse or better.
  
• Different classes, different abilities, marginally different roles. At least in single-player. In the multiplayer I'm sure it works out better. But in single-player I don't see it making a great deal of difference what class you use unless the game forces you to choose one like it does during training. The general purpose is the same: kill things. Just how you actually do it that changes, and by consequence the game is pretty flat in single-player.
  
• I really hope objectives in future missions/battlefields are a little more clear on certain things. The training mode turned me into a mage and then basically told me nothing. I fought orcs for maybe 20 minutes with no end in sight until it then just suddenly did end. I'm still not sure what I did, but I think it was because I had tried using all my abilities. Which means that apparently it considered a mage's Guard as an ability, though it didn't bother telling me that till after I'd used it.
  
• Not terribly impressed with hero characters. Gave me a chance to be Isildur, who turned out to be nothing more than a pumped up Warrior class. And I still got my ass handed to me by Sauron, so I don't really see the point.
  
• Overall the game is interesting, but I think the main draw is going to be the online multiplayer. If I recall, that was the only saving grace of the Star Wars Battlefront games as well, of which this game is basically a LOTR version. Need to try the multiplayer to see if this game would be worth buying at all...

Legendary

• Oh yay, another FPS on the Xbox360! I'm terrible at controlling these things on a controller.
  
• This may be unfair, but really the game strikes me as Bioshock shoved through a mythology filter. At least just in first impressions.  Probably no comparison in stories.  Legendary certainly seems harder though.
  
• It does control well though. I mean, I suck at aiming in console FPSs, and that's always my major issue with them. But beyond that, the controls are not complicated and are well laid out. My only complaint is that I wish when you were throwing a grenade it gave you some idea of distance or something.
  
• You know, if you're making a demo to show off a game where your character has mystical abilities, maybe you should consider showing off more than one of said abilities? The Force Unleashed demo gave you lightsaber throws, force lightning, and combos that you don't start out with normally. And this demo just gives you the ability to heal yourself. Well... yay! Sorry guys, implying that I get different stuff later on doesn't exactly hook me.
  
• It looks like this game is coming to PC as well, judging by the "Games for Windows" tag. Think I'd prefer playing it on there. Well no, I know I'd prefer playing it on there...
  
• I like the concept that after I kill certain enemies, I have to behead them for them to actually stay dead. But, I don't like that they can die in such a way that their head is in a place that I cannot actually strike. Like, oh say, inside a wall!
  
• Overall, eh. If I see it for sale on Steam, I'll consider it.
  

niki niki waki waki

Gotta love streaming video to your XBox 360. Been using it to watch subtitled videos of Jyuken Sentai Gekiranger (Super Sentai series from 2007) and it works like a charm. Fantastic series too, and I may try getting GoGo Sentai Boukenger (2006) too, as it looks like a good one as well.