Dead Rising: Case 0 (360): Popped on just long enough to check my status... I really need to rebeat it with Ending A before the full game comes out!
Final Fantasy XI (PC): Not... much? I stopped on for just a minute, and ended up spending a chunk of time talking to the ever-amiable Aralya. Good stuff, can't complain!
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Monday, September 13, 2010
September 13th, 2010
With Phantasy Star Portable 2 coming out tomorrow and Final Fantasy XIV a week later, the big issue is, what MMO gets my time?! There's still things on XI that I'd like to accomplish as well! They've all got their pros and cons: XI has a ton of content left and I'm already established, and level cap increases will only make it easier (going from 75 to 99 by the end of the year, and levels mean a ton in XI), but it's also an eight year old game, meaning it's lifespan is probably shorter than XIV's and it does look/feel older.
Final Fantasy XIV is gorgeous and new, but also has some issues. It runs far from optimized (it's taken player-made tools to make it run quicker, give it a hardware mouse and allow you to tab out!), and the Fatigue System is just bad precedent and an overall annoyance.
Phantasy Star Portable 2 is honestly what I'd like to play, but the whole portable aspect is an unfortunate turnoff. It might look great (for a portable) and be a nice improvement for Phantasy Star Universe, but it'll always be limited. It's harder to communicate on portables, and that's a big issue for MMOs. Although I expect my circle of friends to end up a lot smaller than XI, it'd be fantastic to play with Helena again!
What will happen? We'll see!
Afterburner Climax (360): Played for like... one life. So it was pretty quick!
Final Fantasy XI (PC): Feed the bird, Hamartia (Bevis) gave me all his stuff so he could cancel his account, hit up an Undead Swarm Besieged, then stopped by a rather miserable Abyssea party. It started off well enough till a Notorious Monster spawned and wreaked havoc! Still, I got *a* Merit Point and four of the five Kindred Crests I need, so it wasn't awful.
Final Fantasy XIV is gorgeous and new, but also has some issues. It runs far from optimized (it's taken player-made tools to make it run quicker, give it a hardware mouse and allow you to tab out!), and the Fatigue System is just bad precedent and an overall annoyance.
Phantasy Star Portable 2 is honestly what I'd like to play, but the whole portable aspect is an unfortunate turnoff. It might look great (for a portable) and be a nice improvement for Phantasy Star Universe, but it'll always be limited. It's harder to communicate on portables, and that's a big issue for MMOs. Although I expect my circle of friends to end up a lot smaller than XI, it'd be fantastic to play with Helena again!
What will happen? We'll see!
Afterburner Climax (360): Played for like... one life. So it was pretty quick!
Final Fantasy XI (PC): Feed the bird, Hamartia (Bevis) gave me all his stuff so he could cancel his account, hit up an Undead Swarm Besieged, then stopped by a rather miserable Abyssea party. It started off well enough till a Notorious Monster spawned and wreaked havoc! Still, I got *a* Merit Point and four of the five Kindred Crests I need, so it wasn't awful.
Sunday, September 12, 2010
September 12th, 2010
Final Fantasy XI (PC): Not much, fed the bird, and that's about it!
Final Fantasy XIV (PC): This is getting absurb. I can't tab out without crashing it. I can't access UAC without crashing it. There's no hardware mouse. It runs only 30-40 FPS running two Radeon HD 5770's CrossFireX - CrossFireX, which it doesn't support on it's own.
And all those issues, including the graphics performance issue, can be taken care of with user-made add-ons only done over the course of a couple weeks. Yes, in the course of a couple weeks, users have added things SE has yet to, fixed ten year old issues like not being able to tab out of fullscreen without crashing the game, added CrossFireX support and increased performance by 5+%.
Seriously guys?
Final Fantasy XIV (PC): This is getting absurb. I can't tab out without crashing it. I can't access UAC without crashing it. There's no hardware mouse. It runs only 30-40 FPS running two Radeon HD 5770's CrossFireX - CrossFireX, which it doesn't support on it's own.
And all those issues, including the graphics performance issue, can be taken care of with user-made add-ons only done over the course of a couple weeks. Yes, in the course of a couple weeks, users have added things SE has yet to, fixed ten year old issues like not being able to tab out of fullscreen without crashing the game, added CrossFireX support and increased performance by 5+%.
Seriously guys?
Saturday, September 11, 2010
September 11th, 2010
September 11th: never forget!
I got to play around with my toys today, which was cool. Got a second Radeon HD 5770 in my rig, only to learn it's core clock is slightly faster than the primary, so I need to switch them around, hah. Debating upgrade the motherboard to one that can do CrossFire with x8 PCI instead of x8 and handle DDR3 RAM as well as all the various USB ports I can't access currently!
Battle Fantasia (360): I got this in the mail yesterday ($7 from Amazon new, and I had been eying it for a bit!), but wasn't in much of a condition to play, heh heh. Seems pretty neat, if unexceptional. I do like the concept, though, a fighting game with RPG elements.
All the characters are based of typical JRPG archetypes, and it actually shows, in addition to their energy bar, a numbered hit points counter, and damage numbers appear on screen as attacks connect. It's cute, didn't quite hook me, but it's cute, and I like the concept.
I made it several battles in on the "Very Hard" setting on my first try, mostly because the guy I grabbed ending up playing like Ryu. <_< Final Fantasy XI: Checked for Besiegeds, didn't get one! Come along now, lamia! Final Fantasy XIV: Didn't play so much as tested. It took a third party program to get CrossFireX working, and it seemed to up the graphics to where they often hovered around 40 FPS, but I noticed I'm actually getting high 20s/low 30s with just one card! Now I'm completely confused - has the code just been optimized that much in the last several days? Has server lag decreased, as well as the load with the initial rush gone? Also XIV doesn't support hardware mice, and CrossFireX isn't supported, and performance can be increased by third party programs that have been in development a few weeks. Go Square! Either way, my hope is that by the time it launches CrossFireX will be available and in Windowed mode too. Regardless, I'm happy to see XIV playing at a decent speed! I was worried it'd be unplayable for me when it came out. >_<
I got to play around with my toys today, which was cool. Got a second Radeon HD 5770 in my rig, only to learn it's core clock is slightly faster than the primary, so I need to switch them around, hah. Debating upgrade the motherboard to one that can do CrossFire with x8 PCI instead of x8 and handle DDR3 RAM as well as all the various USB ports I can't access currently!
Battle Fantasia (360): I got this in the mail yesterday ($7 from Amazon new, and I had been eying it for a bit!), but wasn't in much of a condition to play, heh heh. Seems pretty neat, if unexceptional. I do like the concept, though, a fighting game with RPG elements.
All the characters are based of typical JRPG archetypes, and it actually shows, in addition to their energy bar, a numbered hit points counter, and damage numbers appear on screen as attacks connect. It's cute, didn't quite hook me, but it's cute, and I like the concept.
I made it several battles in on the "Very Hard" setting on my first try, mostly because the guy I grabbed ending up playing like Ryu. <_< Final Fantasy XI: Checked for Besiegeds, didn't get one! Come along now, lamia! Final Fantasy XIV: Didn't play so much as tested. It took a third party program to get CrossFireX working, and it seemed to up the graphics to where they often hovered around 40 FPS, but I noticed I'm actually getting high 20s/low 30s with just one card! Now I'm completely confused - has the code just been optimized that much in the last several days? Has server lag decreased, as well as the load with the initial rush gone? Also XIV doesn't support hardware mice, and CrossFireX isn't supported, and performance can be increased by third party programs that have been in development a few weeks. Go Square! Either way, my hope is that by the time it launches CrossFireX will be available and in Windowed mode too. Regardless, I'm happy to see XIV playing at a decent speed! I was worried it'd be unplayable for me when it came out. >_<
Friday, September 10, 2010
September 10th, 2010
I didn't play a single game today, not at all! I was horribly sick, and outta nowhere. Went to bed super late after gaming with Frank till close to 6 AM, woke up about four hours later just sick as a dog, all sorts of messy. Yuck. <_<
Thursday, September 9, 2010
September 9th, 2010
Wow, it's the Dreamcast's ELEVENTH birthday in the United States! Crazy! I'm still dreamin', and it's still resting comfortably right next to my 360, PS3 and Wii, while most of my old systems are packed on a shelf somewhere.
Final Fantasy XI (PC): Not an overly-heavy FFXI run today, but it began with an Undead Swarm. Started off with two Besiegeds, hooking up with Unicornessence and some randoms, and it ended up being pretty fun. It was a two and two alliance during the lamia fight, and our ranks "jumped" up to six total for the savages.
It was enjoyable on the whole (perverted lil taru...), I'ma make it a point to hit up more alliances during big battles!
LEGO Batman (360): Fun stuff! Initially we passed around the controllers, alternating between myself, Frank, Abby and Mom, and made some nice progress. The levels are shorter, but not too short, making it easier to digest than, say, the massive, meandering levels of LEGO Star Wars. It's interesting they choose to use the 1989 Batman's soundtrack, but not in a bad way considering how epic it was. It repeats a little too often, though.
Found out after beating the Riddler's campaign that the corresponding evildoer's missions are unlocked, as well as the Arkham Asylum. There's where the create-a-character mode is (whew, we were worried there wasn't one!), as well as the massive collection of random NPCs to battle. Neat!
It ended up being myself and Frank, and we played pretty deep into the night, doing the first Riddler mission as well as doing a few into the Penguin battles. We also debuted our new heroes, his "Nude Man," a naked lego guy with a purple turban (he ditched the purple cape), and my generic badass, "Dog Puncher," making his first appearance since WWE RAW 2 on the original Xbox.
Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP): Not a whole lot, didn't bother trying the VIP Escort again, but I did knock out "Being Cruel to the Kind" as well as Lotte's special mission "Recovering the Camera." I normally don't dig the reporter types like, at all, but Lotte's pretty cute! Will almost be unfortunate if I'm nearing the end of her story path, though!
Final Fantasy XI (PC): Not an overly-heavy FFXI run today, but it began with an Undead Swarm. Started off with two Besiegeds, hooking up with Unicornessence and some randoms, and it ended up being pretty fun. It was a two and two alliance during the lamia fight, and our ranks "jumped" up to six total for the savages.
It was enjoyable on the whole (perverted lil taru...), I'ma make it a point to hit up more alliances during big battles!
LEGO Batman (360): Fun stuff! Initially we passed around the controllers, alternating between myself, Frank, Abby and Mom, and made some nice progress. The levels are shorter, but not too short, making it easier to digest than, say, the massive, meandering levels of LEGO Star Wars. It's interesting they choose to use the 1989 Batman's soundtrack, but not in a bad way considering how epic it was. It repeats a little too often, though.
Found out after beating the Riddler's campaign that the corresponding evildoer's missions are unlocked, as well as the Arkham Asylum. There's where the create-a-character mode is (whew, we were worried there wasn't one!), as well as the massive collection of random NPCs to battle. Neat!
It ended up being myself and Frank, and we played pretty deep into the night, doing the first Riddler mission as well as doing a few into the Penguin battles. We also debuted our new heroes, his "Nude Man," a naked lego guy with a purple turban (he ditched the purple cape), and my generic badass, "Dog Puncher," making his first appearance since WWE RAW 2 on the original Xbox.
Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP): Not a whole lot, didn't bother trying the VIP Escort again, but I did knock out "Being Cruel to the Kind" as well as Lotte's special mission "Recovering the Camera." I normally don't dig the reporter types like, at all, but Lotte's pretty cute! Will almost be unfortunate if I'm nearing the end of her story path, though!
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
September 8th, 2010
Final Fantasy XI (PC): Big version update today, which means... not much to me as a Dragoon, since the last two updates have been pretty worthless. Two new jumps, but they take the place of previous jumps and it's arguable if they're a genuine improvement! Somehow I managed to get my update done with, but apparently several people, Tam included, were stuck in a congested mass!
I did play around with the character creation briefly to get an idea of what someone looked like for a fanfic I'm writing, and checked for any Besieged. Evonna was up in the new Scars of Abyssea, but got no response - understandable, tends to be pretty spam heavy there!
Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP): Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch ouch. I failed the "VIP Escort" mission SEVERAL times, once or twice just due to silly little mistakes. The difficulty definitely spikes with this mission, so I might just grind a bit.
I did complete Noel's special mission, "Rescuing Father." One thing I really do like about Valkyria Chronicles II is that you actually get to know all the little characters a lot better. That's pretty cool!
I did play around with the character creation briefly to get an idea of what someone looked like for a fanfic I'm writing, and checked for any Besieged. Evonna was up in the new Scars of Abyssea, but got no response - understandable, tends to be pretty spam heavy there!
Valkyria Chronicles II (PSP): Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch ouch. I failed the "VIP Escort" mission SEVERAL times, once or twice just due to silly little mistakes. The difficulty definitely spikes with this mission, so I might just grind a bit.
I did complete Noel's special mission, "Rescuing Father." One thing I really do like about Valkyria Chronicles II is that you actually get to know all the little characters a lot better. That's pretty cool!
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