G-pinions

Man, do I feel stupid. So Nick and I just played another 3 hours of Norrath. The last few times through I've been weighed down the whole time. Every item you pick up weighs a certain amount, and I was always at my maximum limit, without even carrying anything extra. It was making the game quite boring since I was never able to pick up any of the cool stuff. Nick got first dibs on everything.

So, I was fed up today and just looked around to see what the problem was. Apparantly, Mana and Health vials weigh a ton, and I was carrying way more than I could ever use. So I dropped a shitload and picked up 33% more carrying power. So now I get some of the really great stuff. Yay for me!

This game is still intense. Nick and I just killed a god. God. ZEUS I think it was. With ease too. We're bad ass. This game should never end.

Though I still think the greatest level in the history of console (shut up Lanyon, CONSOLE!) first person shooters is the unbeatable Basement in Goldeneye (not surprisingly, still the best console FPS as well), Blood Gultch from Halo has got to be the second best one. Not only because it helped inspire the great online series Red vs Blue, but because it’s so versatile.

Ok, I know it’s simple. There’s a small, poorly constructed base on either side, with a vast field between them. Oh, and there are cliffs. Whoopee do, my four year old kid could design that. But you throw in a few people, a highly valuable flag and a Scorpion, and you have the most fun thing ever. Ever.

We played some mad 8 player Halo last night. Red vs Blue. Good vs Evil. Clean vs Dirty. Guilty vs Slight Less Guilty. It was my first 8-player Halo game ever, and I’ve owned the system for about 17 months now. Every second was pure gaming bliss.

Anyway, I didn’t really have a point to this post other than to mention I played 8 player Halo last night. I guess I’m kind of bragging, but everyone else has already done it, so why should you be impressed? Well, you should be impressed, damnit! Because it was the greatest thing ever. Sure, if those golden retards didn’t repeatedly unplug our connection, causing our game to crash over and over, it could have been more fun. But during those brief moments when people weren’t ruining our fun, it was gaming heaven. Can’t wait until we play some 8 player Timesplitters 2 tomorrow. You getting on that multitap Diego?

So Tom, Dan, Lanyon and Andy are playing Halo about 3 feet from me.

The day started off at about two o'clock in the p.m., when Tom came over for a bout of C.O.Norrath. After finishing Act 2, which had a lot of bullshit confusing quasi-puzzles (you don't put the cell door key in the cell door - you put it in the pedastal in the middle of the room), we made it to a tropical island and everything started going right. First, I got a two-handed sword of ass-kicking about the height and width of my character (it looks like Cloud's sword). Shortly after, I levelled up and got the power to SUMMON A SKELETON THAT HAS A FLAMING SWORD AND FOLLOWS US BY MOTHERFUCKING TELEPORTING AND TEARING OUR ENEMIES TO MOTHERFUCKING FLAMING DYING SHREDS. Goddamn, that guy is sweet. So the game just got like twice as bomb. We might play some more tonight - we'll see.

So after a bit of that we drove to Lanyon's place in Bumblefuck, IL, and have been mass gaming since. Mass in the sense that there were fourteen people playing games at the same time at one point and in the sense that we've been at it for like 5+ hours. We hit up some eight-player Halo, which was fun but would have been fun moreso if everyone had been taking it seriously, and if it hadn't of frozen every nineteen feet (well, only twice, but still). But, twas still a quality time. There was some Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and some Need For Speed Underground and some NES emulation going on, and non-stop Halo on one TV for like 37 hours.

Lanyon says Halo only froze from having retards step on the cable, but I blame him for having retards in his house.

Anyhow, it's wrapping up, but it was good times. Eye-searingly, thumb-destroying good times. And now Lanyon is going to sleep, so we're off into the wild blue yonder.

So now that I have my crib to myself for a month, I figure I'll be hitting the games pretty hard. Especially cause I just got NesterDC, which allows me to play pretty much any Nintendo game (NES, that is). Tom's had it for a while, so I'm sure he can attest to it's sweetness. And I got one for SNES and Genesis too, I just have to get that shit workin'. Tom and I have been playing plenty more C.O.Norrath, including a several hour romp today with Dan and eventually Diego. Four-player got a little hectic, but it was only for a bit, thankfully. And I don't agree with Penny Arcade/Tom that this makes Nintendo seem even smarter for making FF:CC require the GBAs, because if you had to manage Norrath's complex inventory fiasco in your lap, the other player would have to wait for your anyhow or you'd be rocked by one of the nearly constant swaths of monsters, especially if you were autofollowing. Unless you had an autoattack, but now we're just getting silly. Anyhow, Norrath has levelled out a bit in terms of the 'awesome surprises and new spells and such around every corner' factor, but it's still great and each pair of level 19 Pantaloons of Grandiose that I pick up keeps me thirsting for more till I reach that level.

I think I'm going to do a trial Netflix run. Anyone have any feedback on them?

Oh, almost forgot - Halo party tomorrow and Timesplitters2 party on Saturday. Geek life is good.

Last night I finally started up FFVIII again. I let it sit there collecting dusts for a week while I played some other, more immediately rewarding games. Nick and I have a deal that when I finish FFVIII I can finally borrow Disgaea though, so that gives me some incentive when the game itself isn't going as well.

I am only about 5 hours into the game, so my opinion shouldn't count for much, but the story is still lagging a little. I know in FFVII I was still doing vigilante stuff at this point as the story usually takes a little while to get going in these games, but I want something to happen. All that's happened so far is I became a member of SeeD and had a strange flashback/vision involving people I don't know yet. So, I have no clue where the story is going.

I did have one hardcore battle already. I got this Magic Lamp that warns "Save Before You Use" or something. So, I saved as soon as I got it and used it. Bam, I was whisked away to another dimension where I fought Diablos. I was still really early at this point, my 3 characters are between level 12-14. I didn't equip beforehand, not knowing it was going to be a fight, and only had one Guardian Force with me. So my strongest attack was 450 HP and my other attacks were under 100. Since Diablos has 8800 HP, I got my ass kicked.

Needless to say, I'm persistent. I don't like to lose. So, I fired up my saved game and equipped. This time I was ready. But he's a cheap bastard. He has one gravity attack that hits everyone and takes away more than half your life. Cheap! So I fought valiantly, but only got about three quarters of the way there before he put the kabosh on me, again.

I don't take no for an answer. Ignoring the mission I was supposed to be doing, I went to the training center to fight some decent enemies and level up. Bam! All of a sudden there's a T Rex there. And he has a ton of HP. This time, though, I'm ready for him and whoop his ass. Ah, the confidence is building. So I level up a little then go fight Diablos again.

This time I have a whole strategy. Cure constantly, make sure he can only attack my GFs in the beginning. Stuff like that. But I was still getting my butt kicked. The Asian chick died and I was just using the other two to constantly kill and revive each other. I told you, Diablos is a cheap fuck. So I'm down to the end. I can either raise Tom (Squall?) from the dead, or do my limit break with Zell. I have no life for Zell, so if I don't kill Diablos I'll probably die. So I pull the trigger and do the break.

His break is very cool. You are given a few button combinations to do, and you have 10 seconds to do it. The faster you are the more moves you can pull off. This was my 3rd or 4th time using this so I was pretty comfortable with what needed to be done. So I'm just kicking his ass for a huge time, I must have pulled off 13 or 14 moves. Yay! Then I jump away and... and... Diablos admits defeat! Nice. So he's my newest GF and I got a new card. Even better since I didn't even have enough to play another card game.

So the fighting is pretty cool in the game. I don't know why they took away the limit break bar. I have no idea when I'm getting it now. But it's still fun. The story leaves a lot to be desired, though. I don't like these antisocial characters. They're such assholes.

I was lucky enough to play another extended round of Champions of Norrath last night, this time with 3 people. Scott joined Nick and I in our quest to save the world, or whatever the story is about, and collect lots of cool things in the process.

Nick and I were a little worried about letting Scott into the game. We were already level 7 so we figured Scott would be too weak to have any real impact in the game. Thankfully, that is not the case. I'm not sure if the game helped Scott level up faster by making him gain more experience than us or if just fighting stronger creatures right way did it, but Scott shot through his first 5 levels in little more than an hour. At the end of the night Scott found himself only 3 levels behind Nick and I, which meant we were all basically on equal footing. This is a very good thing. With a game that seemingly relies so much on leveling up and collecting items to complete the quest it was reassuring to see another player is able to join later on.

But, a few gripes have now risen to the surface. Unlike FFCC, there is no Gameboy to manage your items with. This means frequent stops either to check out the equipment you just picked up or just to unload the useless items once you exceed your weight limit. This is a very annoying thing. It was difficult to make it through 5 consecutive minutes without someone needing to check their inventory screen for some reason. With two people it was bearable, 3 made it aggravating after awhile. I assume that with 4 people it would become virtually unplayable. Shame because the game really is a lot of fun. Square doesn't look nearly as stupid now for requiring a GBA to play multiplayer FFCC.

Oh, and the Cleaver of Souls is a real item in the game. Who cares if it wasn't that good, what an awesome name.

So Friday and Saturday were videogametastic, to say the least. Friday was Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles night at Tom's place with Tom, Lanyon, Andy, Ryan, observationist Dan, and myself. We switched off, so I got to play a fair amount despite not owning a GBA (thanks fellas). A few thoughts on the game, you say? Well, sure, why the hell not. We got time, right? Short answer, it was pretty good. I got the idea I was the only gamer in the room who was a fan of story, or at least in that instance, so it was hard to judge the characters and such, but they seemed alright (just dumbed down for more easily accessible gameplay and less involvement). The co-op play was fairly well put-together, if not a bit chaotic. The GBA involvement was a nice addition, and once I understood it it was fairly easy to navigate, but it was definitely not something that needed to be required. They could have figured out a way to do without the hassle. And while four-player is always fun, in most any game, I think three-player would have been a bit less confusing and a bit easier to keep up with in this case. Keep up with successfully, that is - it's all well and good for people to split up the healing, spellcasting, attacking and bucket-bitch duties, but when you run into a couple tough enemies all hell breaks loose ninety percent of the time. But the chaos was fun while it lasted, I must say. One thing I did realize after playing it though, is that it shouldn't have the Final Fantasy name attached to it. It's different enough as to possibly alienate FF fans, but strong enough to have possibly become it's own action/rpg/adventure franchise, and Nintendo could do with a new franchise. Why waste this chance?

I also took the plunge and traded in 5 games to get $25 extra trade-in credit at EB and bought Champions of Norrath. It's pretty great, as you can tell from what Tom wrote. I've been craving it all day, but I'm gonna fight the geek power and hold off till I can play it with Tom later this week, cause we have a great co-op game started and levelling up without him would just be in bad taste. I also bought a Dreamcast for $15 (score!), and Seaman, with the mic, for $3 and some change (double-score!). Then today I went and bought a new controller and two vmus for $12 more, so I'm set, DC-wise (extra for a few choice games I will be locating shortly). Oh, and I bought Metal Arms online for GC for $20. The demo is great, so I assume it'll be the proverbial shit. The four-player shit, mind you. Word.

Time for me to go meet Seaman (I'm somewhat nervous - does my hair look alright?).

Sorry I haven't written in so long. I have a good excuse that involves playing massive amounts of video games and not wishing to stop. I can't remember exactly what it was though.

However, I come bearing gifts and news. The best part is the gift is my news. In the span of only two days I have played two new multiplayer RPGs. Both of them are jam packed with lame stories, repetitive gameplay and an overhead view that makes the sometimes gorgeous visuals appear far away and washed out. One of these games was really fun, the other is genius.

The first game I played was none other than Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. The game is every bit as good as reviews (especially Penny Arcade's) would have you believe. The game is built almost entirely on four player Chaos. Playing this game with any number less would be far less rewarding. As my roommate who was privy to witness our little FFCC get together would attest, yelling, insults and death threats are all too common place.

Part of the team concept comes from the fact that one person is lucky enough to carry around a magic bucket that causes those inside its protective shell to not die a horrible, suffocating death. The person with the bucket is slightly slower than the rest, but you must stay near them in order to stay alive. Because of this, the person who has the bucket is in charge of the group. The map person might yell and scream that North is the right way to go damnit, but it is the Bucket person who ultimately decides the fate of the group. This is clearly trouble for any group that includes an individual who is more concerned with getting back at teammates for problems that may or may not have occurred earlier than successfully completing a level. It is very interesting to see just how much pain and agony The One Who Carries The Bucket can cause.

The game does has a few faults though none of them are all too damning. The most glaring one centers around your tiny life bar. You start the game with only 4 Zelda style hearts. As your enemies are strong enough to do some damage, you will find yourself either dead or dying for most of your journey in the early going. Most of the yelling centered around healing. If the jack ass who picked up the cure isn't paying attention, you will probably die. It's not an unfair system, but you have to learn not to burn too many bridges while carrying the Bucket, and that's a lesson some people never quite grasped.

Combat in the game is very simple and quite fun. You basically only have two attacks: a physical strike and a magic attack. The magic is picked during the course of every level, so the attack you have is different from dungeon to dungeon. Because of the randomness of the magic, it's probably best to select a character with strong physical attacks or at least some defense. I, unfortunately, picked the most magical of creatures. Because of this, I found myself dying as often as my opponent when forced to engage in hand to hand combat.

When everyone is working as a team the combat is a blast though. If timed properly, magic attacks can be fused together to form more powerful attacks. And, if you use two different spells, you can create entirely new magic. Very cool.

The game is really fun. It brings out the worst in people, and isn't that why we play video games in the first place? Shockingly enough, this was only the Very Good game I played this weekend.

The superior game, the game that I consider pure genius, has almost no hype. A spinoff of the Everquest franchise called Champions of Norrath. A game built entirely by a team of extra nerdy nerds in an attempt to not only control the lives of, but also separate out, the true video game nerds from the people who just like to play games. This is a game that started the stereotype that gamers are smelly, dateless, anti social freaks with nothing better to do than "get to the next level."

Of course, I like this game. It's a game I might have been ashamed to admit I loved a few years back, but I am a new, stronger man now, and I can hide behind a computer screen so your painful barbs can't reach me. The game is fun in a way games aren't supposed to be. It isn't the gameplay that is so awesome it makes one have dreams of conquest. It is, instead, the items you pick up on your journey. The game is loaded with a wide assortment of items, I'm told there are over 10,000 different ones. And most of them have fanciful names like the Ancient Holy Mirth Rod of Merry Delights I alluded to earlier. While that specific item may not actually appear in the game, if I happened upon it on my quest I would be none too surprised.

I will stop talking of Champions of Norrath now. The game is over 50 hours long, and Nick and I plan on tackling the entire game. So, expect many more posts about what I have seen during my journey in the future. Also, there might be a few posts about a wonderful game that involves chasing down monkeys and a Dreamcast classic I bought for under $4 yesterday.