One of the reasons I prefer the PS3 to the 360 is that I can copy saved games to and from the system with a USB stick, no need for some third party doo-hickey (caveat emptor: PS3 games won’t let you use other people’s saves, sans hacking them to work on your system). There’s also the fact that Blu Ray lets me play Assassin’s Creed with Italian dialogue, and play Uncharted 2 with the leads talking in French so I don’t have to hear the smarmy American voices, but let’s save that for another time. It’s one of the reasons I prefer the PSP to the DS too, aside from the non-tiny screen. I was able to expedite my playthrough of the Scott Bakula-Agent Smith inspired action RPG The Third Birthday with cleared game data, sometimes referred to as New Game+.
After the jump, what does any of this New Game+ business have to do with Suikoden V? Continue reading →
Wait, is this one of those games where androgynous teenagers save the world? Yes, thank you, wise ass. We’ve all heard that joke a million times.
Suikoden V does have a pretty-boy teenage lead. Freyjadour Falenas, as he’s officially known in the wiki. But he has a good excuse for being in a position of such importance: he’s the prince of Falena. His porcelain features reflect his good breeding. He gets his snowy white hair from his mother, the regal Queen Arashat, and his washboard abs from the consort of the Queen (but not the King, more on that later), former barbarian Ferid. And it’s not him and his high school pals leading the charge against chaos. It’s him and 108 other named characters, plus an army of thousands. And they’re not saving the world, they’re quashing a coup in a civil war against usurpers of the throne. And he’s not even the brains behind the war effort. That distinction belongs to Lucretia, the strategist or Tenki Star (the star of wisdom). Because this is an entry in the mostly defunct Suikoden RPG series, where the gimmick is that you recruit 108 possible party members (the stars of destiny) and raise an army.
After the jump, nothing about Skyrim, but plenty about marrying ten year old girls Continue reading →
There are two kinds of cards in Ascension: non-monsters that you buy to put into your deck, and monsters. When you beat a monster, it’s banished from the game and you earn some victory points. In the basic Ascension cards, the most powerful monster was a fellow called Avatar of the Fallen. I have no idea who the Fallen is or why he’s sent an avatar in his stead, but I know card was as bad-ass as enemies got. I had a friend maintain that if you could beat the Avatar of the Fallen, you were going to win the game.
After the jump, Sam he is! Continue reading →
One of the reasons I really like Ascension is that its flavor takes some time to appreciate. This is a game that simmers instead of pops. You won’t recognize these cards as your standard fantasy tropes. For instance, the game’s four factions might look vaguely familiar, but how familiar are they? They’re called Enlightment, Void, Mechana, and Lifebound. A look at the artwork and a basic understanding of each faction’s dynamics might lead to certain conclusions. So, uh, priests, evil, machines, and fairies? White, purple, brown, and green? Paladins, necromancers, engineers, and rangers? Humans, demons, dwarves, and elves? Religion, obfuscation, science, and nature? Knowledge, power, technology, and peace? Who knows.
After the jump, WWTBD Continue reading →
In the good old days before the add-on, Oziah the Peerless was the fiercest warrior you could get into your Ascension deck. This guy automatically and single-handedly beat any monster in the deck, except for the Avatar of the Fallen himself. I mean, you can’t very well have one card trump the main villain, can you? But otherwise, Oziah the Peerless was worthy of his superlative. It seemed a shame to waste him on a Mephit or even a Corrosive Widow. He could take down an Earth Tyrant. He could even best Xeron, Duke of Lies. This guy meant business. But then the add-on came along.
One of the problems with using superlatives as a title is that you never know when an add-on is going to come out. Return of the Fallen includes a hero named Adayu. Adayu, the Chosen. That’s Mr. Chosen to you. Adayu, the Chosen is a card that lets you simply take or defeat any card you want. Any card. Even an Avatar of the Fallen. Even the actual Fallen, who I presume is the brand new uber-baddie in the expansion, Samael the Fallen. There is no card in Ascension that Adayu does not trump. Of course, there’s also no card as expensive as Adayu, but you get what you pay for.
And this means Oziah is no longer peerless. Oziah, meet Adayu. Adayu, Oziah. You guys will be sharing a room. (Psst, Oziah, come here. Don’t tell Adayu I’m telling you this, but I still like your card art and flavor text better!)
Up next, Tom Bombadil meets his match
Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious card of Ascension lore,
While I was drawing, nearly losing, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
`’Tis some Great-Omen Raven tapping at my chamber door –
Only this, and nothing more.’
Guess what’s after the jump Continue reading →
Gorph. Sorry about that. I just took a big gulp of coke.
It’s feeding time after the jump Continue reading →
That’s the Hectic Scribe up there. I hate that guy. As per his flavor text:
They are nimble with the quill — fast enough to keep pace with history as it unfolds.
I’m going to talk about a different card every day for the next week. Wait, don’t go! Maybe you don’t play Ascension. That’s cool. I’ll try to make it interesting for you, too.
Ascension is a deck building game, where you and your opponent start with ten cards and gradually use them to buy more cards, which help you buy more cards. It’s all about making choices for what to buy for your deck, and then the luck of the draw for what cards show up in your hand every turn. It’s a bit mathy, but with oodles of atmosphere, thanks to designer Justin Gary and artist Eric Sabee. The folks at Incinerator Studios have done a superlative port to the iPhone, which just added the Return of the Fallen expansion as a $3 add-on.
After the jump, send the kids to bed, because things get sexy and I got the pics to prove it Continue reading →
I continually forget what I am doing every time I reload my game so I have half a million quests going at the same time. It’s gotten so bad that I end up in a town talking to a random NPC who has a quest for me that hey, I’ve already done, so here is this thing you wanted. Clairvoyance ain’t got nothing on me!
After the jump, magiclessness, butterfly mangling, and a new friend Continue reading →
Completely by accident I find myself doing part of the main quest. I was just hopping up a mountain (can I say how much I miss the crazy jumping in Oblivion?). I didn’t expect the god damn Gray Beards to be there. But now that I’m here, I might as well go learn their stupid dragon word thing. I actually always forget about the shouts so I never, ever use them, and it takes me a couple of tries to actually learn the wind one because I had the first shout set on the button I kept using and this was apparently not impressing the guys in the robes. I figure out how to set the wind shout on the button to push myself forward and they tell me to go to some crypt to do something else but screw that, I make my own decisions! So I ditch that place and decide to go wandering around way to the north where I haven’t discovered anything yet.
Afer the jump, I discover Skyrim: Alaska Continue reading →
I have discovered that the best way to level up is to find yourself in an area that is incredibly high level completely by accident while wandering around looking for things to collect. It’s also really frustrating, but here is where my hobby pays off. You see, I could care less about the main quest or really any sub-quests. What I actually love is stealing food. And some of the food, while ridiculous heavy, is amazingly good at giving you back health.
Wolves and cheese after the jump Continue reading →
This is mostly a lovely and polished game, but sometimes its German roots show awkwardly. A data log entry or tooltip lapses into German, as if you’re at a Prufpunkt und der Schutz bittet um meine Papiere. Not very pleasant, is it? So the last place I expected to find a poetic touch is the random name generator.
A verbal pot of gold, after the jump Continue reading →
After selling off my stuff at the local store I decide to go find the town that will let me join the thieves guild. After all, I’m awesome at stealing and I want a group of people to acknowledge that. Since the local soldiers don’t seem to, I need to find this place ASAP so that I stop having all my stolen goods confiscated.
After the jump, finding this place Continue reading →
I have no desire to play Saints Row 3 as that dude up there, who I downloaded from the community gallery. I didn’t make him, I don’t care about him, I don’t like his voice, and lords knows I’ve played enough dudes like that in Modern Warfare 3 and Battlefield 3. But one of the achievements in Saints Row 3 is called Gender Equality. You unlock it by playing at least two hours as a dude and two hours as a chick. I’ve logged over forty hours as a chick, so now I’m doing my term of service as a dude. See? Gender equality. But after two hours, that guy is outta here.
By the way, if you haven’t experienced the charms of the Thompson helicopter (pictured), I recommend it. You can find one on the back of the cargo ship near Kenzie’s pad. What a lovely nimble little minx. The helicopter isn’t bad either.
One of the new additions in Anno 2070 is underwater gameplay. My concern at first was that an entirely new layer of gameplay could be more trouble than it’s worth. What is there to do down there? How does it relate to the above-water game? Is it feature creep or an exciting new level of gameplay?
After the jump, dive, dive, dive! Continue reading →
