October 10th, 2010

Castlevania Lords of Shadow (PS3): Just a few more levels. I'm getting pretty good at timed-blocking, which is making the game a lot easier. My biggest complaints so far is that it really doesn't feel all that much like Castlevania, despite being beautiful, and that it's VERY structured.

Even the old-school Castlevanias, left to right movement, did a better jump of covering up the structure, but that's not all that big a deal. It's still a ton of fun.

My conclusion is that these sort of games are essentially mini-game reliant, they keep you interested and entertained through numerous mini-games to vary things up. You've got the core battle system, then you're riding a horse, then you're balancing across rails, then you're riding a tamed spider or creature and use their abilities to access areas you couldn't, then you're sawing your way through an obstacle, then you're climbing up a boss, then you're engaging in various quick-time-events.

And it works great, don't get me wrong, but that's essentially what these games are.

Comic Jumper (360): I tried the demo, liked it, and ended up buying the full game right there. It was actually a review downing the game that sold me on it. Despite being all about finding the "deeper meaning" in games, said blogger decryed the game as unfunny and not-politically-correct. Naturally, that pretension made me decide I *needed* to play the game, and lo and behold, it's pretty darn funny.

Difficult, too! I'm only on the second level. I'm pretty excited to see some of the other worlds, particularly the manga-inspired stages!

Dead Rising 2 (360): Just played some more Terror is Reality online. Pretty fun, and I'm decent at some of the games. I unlocked a Champions Jacket and actually came in first overall on one of my runs, as well as have several hundred thousand for my main game. Sweet.

October 5th, 2010

Dead Rising 2 (360): So I took down the first boss and went into Overtime! He wasn't too bad. After it turned out my pink chainsaw was worthless (he kept disarming it like anything else), I used my Sniper Rifle and shot him at point blank a few times, then simply dropped 'bows on him.

Overtime was a bit of a let down. Whereas DR1's OT was *epic*, 2's was simply running around, grabbing a few items, then taking on a fairly easy (but fun) final boss. Someone on the GameFAQs boards mentioned they considered the upcoming "Case West" to be the true OT, and I'm expecting that'll be the case!

The final verdict? Better than the first game. I liked the original's overtime, storyline and picture taking, however, gameplay-wise the sequel fixed most of what was wrong with the original.

Final Fantasy XI (PC): Hit up Jeuno since there was no Swarm attack coming, putting up some of Ham's old, low level stuff up for AH and NPCing various crap I had on me. I did give a group of five a quick Mea port: at first I was ignoring them because the guy kept spamming the shout, then one of his friends sent me a tell. He then upped his price, to which I shouted back, "Wait, if he keeps going up, should I wait a lil longer before offering to port them?"

His next shout dropped from 7k to 1k, and he said, "Oops, too late!"

I gave them the port for free.