NLU Weekly #8 (October 12, 2006) - Auto Battle |
 Dig Dug Impressions Wednesday morning at 1am PST, I downloaded Dig Dug for the Xbox Live Arcade. I had 400 points left after buying Doom, so I figured this would be worth a shot. I knew what Dig Dug was, but I mostly played Dig Dug II on the NES, so this game is quite a bit different. These old games are so easy to describe. As Dig Dug you dig through the ground trying to eliminate the enemies in the levels. You can either drop a rock on their head or stick them with your harpoon and pump them full of air until they burst. Clear the level of enemies, clear the level. That's it. So far I haven't really found any of these old aracde titles replayable. I love classic games, but, the simplicity of the Namco and Konami titles, have just left me saying "That was cool..." and then never playing them again after I get a majority of the achievement points. Hopefully titles like Contra and Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 will have longevity, kind of like Doom. I think if I played more these games as a kid (like I did with Doom) I would love to get back into them, but at this point I should probably stop spending $5 everytime a new one is released. (Like that will happen) Enchanted Arms Update I didn't spend $5 on this game, infact it was closer to $80 CDN, which as of now I wish I didn't do. I was a starving for a new RPG, especially one to play on my new 360... I still bought it even after GameSpot gave the game a 7.1 in the review. I don't totally regret it, I do kinda like the game, but it's so generic and cookie-cutter in most respects that I'm almost forcing myself through it (not to mention to justify the $80 I spent on it). I'm glad the game hands out achievement points like it does, because at this point I think I would have stopped playing the game. I thought the story was going to delve deeper, but at the rate it is going they aren't going to get to the point (if there was one) until the very last minute. From what I know and what I predict here is how the story will turn out... Beginning Atsuma starts what is big trouble for the world... Atsuma has a weird arm that controls him and makes him go berserk... The Queen of Ice is going to be one of the final bosses... Middle Bunch of pointless crap to fill out the story, like... Investigating Crimes, the Queen of Ice taunting you at every chance, running around (a lot), going back and forth from place to place (a lot), fighting random fights (a lot) and auto battling through all them with ease, talking to lots of random people, listening to bad voice acting and the game forgetting about the one and only main plot line, to tell you all this stuff, when the game could have ended 20 hours ago. Ending Fight Queen of Ice... Fight evil in Atsuma's right arm... Find out what the deal with Atsuma's right arm was... THE END... When I finish the game I will tell you how close I was to guessing, but the point is everything in the middle is just filler. They make you think that it has something to do with the main story, but to be honest there isn't hardly a story here at all. It boils down to... Atsuma's arm is messed up, he's human, but his arm is a devil golem, why is he like that? And that is basically what drives the game... That one single plot line. They try to drive the game forward with Atsuma's constant "I've gotta save Toya!" lines and by every so often reminding you that Atsuma has a crazy arm, but I feel it's going to all boil down to getting to the last areas of the game or not until even after the final boss fight until they tell complete the one and only "major" plot line in the game. I wasn't like this the other day, but after my last session all that stuff just hit me. After sitting through inane coversations that have nothing to do with main idea of finding out why Atsuma has a crazy arm. Hopefully it will pick up and this is just a slow part of the game... But this kind of reminds me of Star Ocean 3: Til the End of Time, the game had no rhyme or reason for the actions you did, they hardly had anything to with the story and then BOOM... All of a sudden they drop a bomb on you out of the blue with no build up to it at all. In the case of that game, that the characters you where controlling find out they are actually part of a universe simulation game controlled by people in what your characters called the 4th Demention. They where no hints at it, nothing, then all is revieled. At least that was a little over half way though that game, I think that Enchated Arms is going to wait for the very last part for theirs. That's not how you tell a story, you've gotta build up to the plot point in the middle (or so) and then drop your plot point and start building another going towards the final battle, while having the scenarios in the gameplay having to do with the plot points, not just something to do until the game decides it's time to end the story. Enchanted Arms does an okay job at getting you interested about his arm, but that plot line alone isn't enough to fully drive the game, that is why all that other stuff seems like filler and has nothing to do with anything. I don't know if any of that made sense, it probably doesn't I kinda started ranting there. But I will probably hunker down with Enchanted Arms and finish it by Friday. Upcoming Games I mentioned last update that I was going to check my release calender and see what I would be looking to pick up in the next month and a half, so here it is. Not all these game are must haves, but they where on my release list. October Godhand (October 10) Tales of the Abyss (October 10) Final Fantasy XII (October 31) Need for Speed Carbon (October 31) November Guitar Hero II (November 7) Sega Genesis Collection (November 7) Tony Hawk's Project 8 (November 7) Final Fantasy III (DS) (November 14) Out of those 8 games, probably Tales of the Abyss, Final Fantasy XII, Guitar Hero II and Tony Hawk's Project 8 are on the radar. Those others I might pick up if I get the extra cash. Well that does it for upcoming games, I'll keep an eye out for Tales of the Abyss and tell you about if I get it this week. NHL 2K7 Leagues I'm back in to NHL 2K leagues again. Back in the NHL 2K5 season, I played nearly 100 league games over 4 seasons. I'm back playing with my friends who I met back when NHL Hitz Pro came out in 2003 and will be playing in both PS2 and 360 leagues with them. I won all 4 of the seasons in 2K5, I'm hoping that my winning ways will continue, though, last time, I'll admit winning came at the expense of fun, I'm going to make sure that isn't the case this time around. Tony Hawk Week Update I'm preparing Tony Hawk Week, where I'm going to take a created skater through all the Tony Hawk games that have that feature. Which means THPS 1 is excluded, but I don't have that game anyways, so I couldn't play it if I wanted to. Though I admit after playing and owning the last 6 games (THPS2 - THAW) in the series, missing THPS1 from my collection feels wrong somehow. But I have been going through the game to see if I can come up with a custom skater that will look as close to the same through all the games, I've got a few ideas, but during my play I discovered something odd. I fired up THUG 2 (Tony Hawk's Underground 2, if you don't know) and discovered that one of my main save files had become corrupted... all by itself. I haven't played THUG 2 in probably nearly a year and all of a sudden my 100% save is wrecked? I had trouble with THUG 2 before, you can read the old article at that link. What caused that, as I discovered later, is if you try to do anything: change levels, adjust skaters outfits, or even SAVE GAMES, while there is a trick string on screen, the game will lock-up. That cost me a lot progress the first time. That didn't happen this time, but I heard rumors at the time that THUG 2 saves going corrupt on their own back when I dismissed the lockup at save before I encountered that one. When I get to Tony Hawk Week's THUG 2 coverage I'll talk more about it, but I do believe those are the two most crippling bugs in Tony Hawk game history. I'm gunning for a starting it on Monday, but I might wait until Sunday 22nd before I start. I've still yet to decide, I guess it's all up to when I finish Enchanted Arms. I mean I could even save it as a lead in to THP 8 coming November 7th, but I kind of really want to play some Hawk games. More on this soon. Closing Out Dang... This was way longer than I though it would end up being, probably one of the longest posts in a long time, but hey, sometimes I get fired up. I'm gunning for the next post to be "Finished: Enchated Arms" but if I do get Tales of the Abyss, I will have my usual impressions. If you read all of this post, I'm proud of you. But I'm out of here. Balee-dat! Loading Complete! |
POSTED ON OCTOBER 12, 2006 |
